A Wizard's Guide to 'Banking'
by Bakuraptor
Summary: The problem: muggleborns are heavily discriminated against, Voldemort has this terrible habit of killing them whenever he gets the chance, and things aren't getting any better. The solution? Well, find safety in numbers - and if the numbers don't exist yet, find a way to make them - and never mind if you knock the wizarding world on its head on the way.
1. Life on the other side

**A brief introduction:** Thanks for reading! If you're wondering why the characters listed aren't in this first chapter, worry not. They're a bit busy trying to defeat Voldemort right now; and they'll be joining us very soon. Also, never fear; although there are a few OCs in this fiction, they're not going to manifest any special powers, show up the series' characters, or be my mouthpieces. Enjoy!

 **Chapter 1: Life on the other side**

The strangest thing about his return to muggle life, mused the last student out of the laboratory, was the feeling of being very close to and very far away from the ongoing war in Wizarding Britain at the same time. Having graduated from Hogwarts in 1977, Graham Longshaw had, like every muggleborn in his year, been taken aside – in his case, by Professor Flitwick, who had been his head of house – and given the firm instruction that whatever plans he might have had for a life in the wizarding world should be set aside. If they wished to contribute to the fight against Voldemort, that was well and good, and Dumbledore would be able to offer them a degree of protection; if they didn't, they should return to the muggle world, remain vigilant, and avoid detection as best they could until – with any luck – the situation improved.

That said, Graham thought, it had been nearly three years now, and his irregular access to the Prophet indicated that Voldemort remained stubbornly alive and his supporters were as vocal as they had always been; it certainly didn't feel as if things would be over by Christmas. While Voldemort's war had gifted the muggle world with a steady stream of headline-grabbing stories – unidentified serial killers on the loose, bombings which the IRA wouldn't own up to, a disturbing number of disasters, mysterious deaths, and so on – the sporadic contact which Graham still had with the magical world indicated that the muggle world was, statistically, a far safer place for him to live.

For all his distaste for the situation which faced magical Britain, the 'disappearance' of a muggleborn friend who had graduated the year before Graham had reinforced a notion which percolated for most of his final year; namely, that, at least for the foreseeable future, all that he wanted to do with the magical world was to leave it (this was a notion further heightened by the reappearance of his missing friend, or, more precisely, of about two thirds of his missing friend, in the spring before Graham took his NEWTs). Copious use of the confundus charm along with a summer of desperate catch-up work had secured a place at Oxford, where he'd carried on with this desperate work schedule (along with everyone else studying Medicine there).

By now, Graham had reached the Lamb and Flag, his regular haunt on Friday evenings. After ordering his usual (whichever pint offered the best pence-per-unit ratio) he found his way to the table at the back where a few of his friends were nursing their own drinks, already deep into the gripes which characterised most student conversation.

"I swear, this is the first time I've been able to get out in weeks! We're being worked to the bone. Literally to the bone; I'll bite my hand off before I sit through another anatomy lecture, I swear-" "Oh, stop being such a wuss, Dave. You've literally been out three nights _this_ week, and I know for a fact that you've half-arsed the essay we were set for our tutorial, you – oh, evening, Graham!"

This last pronunciation came from Jessica, who – along with her now-chastened boyfriend, David – were Graham's best friends.

"Evening, guys." Graham smiled as he pulled up a chair. "What's the domestic this time – anything more exciting than Dave's, ah, creative approach to work?" That, of course, set off a whole new round of teasing which marked the start a pleasantly unproductive evening. Eventually, though, the closing bell heralded the group's splitting up; after David said his goodbyes and headed for his college, Jessica and Graham were the only ones left.

Now that they were alone, a little of the levity left Jessica's posture, and she sighed heavily as they walked towards the flat they shared.

"Have you heard the news?" she asked Graham, who shook his head. "Apparently, the aurors found another two muggleborns yesterday – Ellis and Smithson, from the year below us. God, keeping up a cheerful act has been a bastard today." Jessica and Graham had both been in the same year at Hogwarts, and had planned the move to Oxford together; their relationship, the motive for this joint move, had quickly petered out into a much more comfortable friendship.

"Seriously? God, what a shame. Did you hear what happened to them? Actually, never mind - I really don't want to know." The horror of more muggleborn deaths had become more of a dull ache than any particular shock; the fact that Philip Smithson (and, given how close the two had been, probably Charles Ellis as well) had been so eager to work for Dumbledore's cause had effectively rendered it a question of how long they had before they ran out of luck; Death Eaters tended to injure or capture half-bloods and purebloods, and to leave just about enough muggleborn behind for reassembly with the help of a forensic expert. Given how small the wizarding population was, it was a sensible procedure; after all, any conqueror needed someone to rule, and, if they killed all wizards with the fervour they used to pursue muggleborns, that population would rapidly evaporate.

They walked in contemplative silence until they reached their flat; once they were inside, Graham drew his wand and gestured to summon a bottle of Firewhiskey and a pair of shot glasses; as she returned from checking the flat's wards, Jessica accepted the glass which had been eagerly poured for her by the animated bottle, and sank onto the sofa next to Graham. The two sat in silence for a moment as they sipped their drinks; another gesture from Graham lit an unfueled fire.

"It's just so disheartening." murmured Jessica. "I know that there's a good number of us that went into hiding, and there are a few muggleborns that've stuck around in the wizarding world, but – well, do you actually know anyone who's still able to live a proper life there?"

"Well, there's Evans," Graham offered. "She's still published in the charms column of the prophet now and then, isn't she?"

"And she's been the _personal_ target of You-Know-Who twice, for Christ's sake! Not to mention the fact that she's probably working with Dumbledore behind the scenes along with Potter. At least she's standing up to him at all, I suppose."

It was an old argument, if it could even be called an argument. Both Jessica and Graham knew that their decision to go into hiding had probably saved their lives. There had been eleven muggleborns in their year, and they knew that four of them were dead; another one had "disappeared", as a brief notice in the Prophet had noted a few months earlier, and the remaining six, the two of them included, had sought out new lives. Graham had been able to get some support in transitioning back to the muggle world from his parents, who had moved to New Zealand in his third year; but for Jessica, who had been orphaned at the age of eight, the pain and frustration of being rejected from the new world she'd made her home to return to one which seemed to have rejected her long ago still resurfaced from time to time.

After a brief pause, Jessica spoke again. "The thing that really bothers me more than anything else about the Vol- sorry, about the You-Know-Who situation is that I can't imagine anything is really going to change, even if Dumbledore eventually manages to defeat him. Just look at Minchum; he was elected with sixty-five percent of the vote and he's hardly any less popular today!"

Harold Minchum had been appointed Minister for Magic in 1975 after running on a ticket which promised to restrict the occupations which muggleborns were allowed to occupy on the basis that certain institutions of magical life – chief among them the ministry, spell creation, and healthcare – could be irrevocably transformed by an influx of wizards not raised in the magical world. He had decried such 'barbaric' muggle inventions as operating theatres and IV drips to prove the destructive and terrifying effects which muggle influence could wreak. His campaign, carried out amid a time of rising anti-muggle tension and terrorist attacks, proved a resounding success: and, true to his word, in his first weeks in office he quickly passed legislation which included the banning of muggleborns from the profession of Healer. Just like that, as Madam Pomfrey had frankly, though kindly, informed him, his ambition to work as a healer had been scuppered; his decision to study muggle medicine was as a direct result of that disappointment.

There was another silence, which the bottle used to refill both their glasses.

"The problem's one of demographics, in the end." said Graham. "I mean, if you think about it for a minute, there were, what, seventy or eighty people in our year? And the average wizard can live to be a hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty. So you end up with perhaps a bit under ten thousand wizards in the UK. And there are probably seventy-odd muggleborns in Hogwarts at any one time, so perhaps one or two thousand in the whole country?"

"And that's not even counting the number of muggleborns that leave the magical world, emigrate, or get killed." Jessica interjected.

"Yeah, exactly. So you end up with this situation where the muggle-born population is small enough that they have very little political power, but significant enough that they're always ripe to be scapegoated. Even if Dumbledore were to win the war, it'll just mean that we'd be living in a state controlled by someone who doesn't mind sending muggleborns to their death instead of someone who _actively_ wants to kill them."

Jessica snorted at that; she'd lost most of her sympathy for Dumbledore's resistance movement long ago, and it was eroded a little more every time she heard that another of her friends had "vanished". She took another sip of her Firewhiskey.

"Well, there's not much to be done to increase it, is there? I'm sure that you'd be a wonderful parent, Gray, but I've certainly not got any plans to pop out sprogs "for the cause" any time soon -" (Graham couldn't help but laugh at that) "- and even if I was, even if every muggle-born was – it's not like it'd be fast enough to make enough of a difference to the wizarding population at any real pace, let alone the fact that I have no interest in consigning my kids to life as second class citizens."

Once more, silence descended on the two; as it always seemed to do with wizarding politics, the conversation had come to a dead end. After some time, though, Graham had an odd thought.

"Jess," he said, "have you ever heard of BPAS?" Seeing her shake her head, he carried on. "Basically, they're a gynaecological organisation I learnt a bit about in my Ob/Gyn module – so they do birth control, and so on. But they also do, uh, sperm donation." This was, understandably, not a conversation that Jessica had expected.

"I'll have you know I've no problems in that regard, thank you _so_ very much!" she retorted, but Graham was quick to mollify her. "No, no, it's not _that_ , I didn't mean to – but just imagine if it was a wizard that donated to them. In fact, imagine if you were able to replace _all_ of their donations with, ah, magical offerings. A bit less than a thousand children last year were born from donors; and I know that most children of muggleborns are magical themselves. The odds would be pretty good that most of them would have the spark! Or whatever selector it is that gives people magic, anyway. As far as I can tell, it's not as if there's a limited number of magic kids that a given wizard can have."

"Hah! I've got no idea how you'd even do that, but it'd be a shock to the magical system, wouldn't it? Imagine how long the Sorting would take with ten times as many pupils – or how high Flitwick'd have to pile his books so that the whole class could see him!" Both wizards found this a highly amusing concept, and, as the bottle decided that they'd had enough to drink and floated back to its shelf, they agreed that this was enough silliness for the night; after one final toast to the memory of Smithson and Ellis, they retired to bed.

* * *

As he nursed his hangover over a cup of coffee (mercifully brewed with a few muttered words and, thank Merlin, no physical effort) the following day, though, Graham's drunken idea wouldn't leave him. Or, perhaps more accurately, the image of muggleborns (or would they technically be half-bloods, he wondered) outnumbering purebloods ten to one was proving to be a remarkably resilient one. Clearly something of this was showing on his face, as the first thing that Jessica did when she came into the kitchenette a few minutes later was to look at him, then let out a groan entirely unrelated to her alcohol-induced headache.

"You've had an idea, haven't you?" Before he could ask about her newly acquired deductive capabilities, she answered for him: "I think it's a Ravenclaw thing. You just get this look on your face, like you're imagining something very odd and probably very troublesome, I guess?"

"Well," began Graham defensively, "It's not troublesome, exactly – it's more an idea that could save the wizarding world. Or change it, at least. You know what I was saying, last night, about sperm banks?" Jessica snorted with laughter.

"No. No way in hell, Gray; that's just such a terrible idea in so many ways, and I know you know that." As she talked, Jessica was assembling herself a Bloody Mary with sheer force of willpower and a little wand-work. "I mean, set aside the practical difficulties for a minute, and just think of the ethical issues! You'd be violating thousands of pregnancies, not to mention the institution itself, and, well, just think about what you'd be imposing on the children!" Guiding a crowning stick of celery into her remedy, she joined Graham at the table.

"Well, that's the thing, Jess. I mean, is it actually that horrible of a thing, to be a wizard? Setting aside the magical powers and so on for a second, what we'd be offering mothers, and yes, not with their consent, is the chance for their kids to live to be maybe a hundred and fifty years old; to have lives which will, by any probabilistic measure, be more enriched and exciting than they would otherwise enjoy; even if some of them turned out to be Squibs, they'd suffer none of the stigma, and would still get some of the improved life expectancy. I mean, it's a win-win, isn't it?"

Jessica stared at him for a few moments until Graham sighed. "Okay, okay. It's a win-win apart from the fact that they'd be entering a world where they're actively discriminated against, where half the population hate their very existence, and where a terrifying lunatic's dead set on killing them. You're right, of course. I know that you're right. But still..."

The two of them sat in silence as they finished their drinks (an experiment as to whether Graham could handle cereal in the state he was in having proven wholly unsuccessful) before Jessica proclaimed that she finally felt human enough to venture into the wider world, and that she was "going to meet Dave for a proper breakfast, so don't have any more Ravenclaw moments before I get back!", leaving Graham at the mercy of his thoughts.

Although she'd suffered a far harsher loss than he had in the car crash that had taken her parents away from her, Jessica had still taken well enough to life in a less judgemental muggle England. Graham knew that she was serious enough in her relationship with David that she was starting to think about popping the question, or at least hoping that he would; he wasn't quite sure how she was going to breach the other 'M' topic, though. Even if they'd quickly realised that things simply weren't working out for them romantically, he and Jess were both glad that they had someone with whom they could share the part of their lives that magic was; hiding it from the person she loved was taking its toll on her, and it certainly explained her reluctance to accept the idea that imposing that same dual existence on children could ever be a good idea.

The problem was that, in some ways, Jess was absolutely right, Graham mused. It would at the very least be immoral to consign thousands of children to the potential threats that muggle-raised wizards would face in a world as hostile as theirs. But Graham was just as certain that, if nothing changed, there would be no situation in which muggleborns would shed their pariah status once and for all. In the same way that the Jews had been a convenient target for persecution throughout history whenever societal tensions came to a peak, be it due to famine or religious vitriol, muggleborns would always be a convenient target for a demagogue to turn against when the magical world needed a scapegoat to blame its latest crisis on.

Most muggleborns he'd known about in his early years at Hogwarts had ended up working in the magical equivalent to working class jobs: as factory-line potions makers, shop staff, doing minor administrative work. God knew what their status would be if Voldemort won – would they be allowed to live at all, and if they were, would they be allowed wands, or education, or afforded any life beyond indentured slavery? Something _had_ to change. If it didn't, things would be the same for any children he or Jessica's might have – and for all the new muggleborns that might have the misfortune to have magical powers and be forced to enter a world that sought at its kindest to exploit their existence. But if they were given some magical support before going to Hogwarts, if they were protected from the wizarding world for long enough, if -

All of a sudden, Graham was gripped with excitement; although its pieces were still slotting into place, he had the beginnings of a plan. He rushed to his bedroom to dig through his trunk, ignoring his mirror as it tutted over his appearance and complete lack of proper etiquette; a minute later, he remembered that he was a wizard, summoned the letter he had been looking for, and rushed to the telephone. He dialled the neatly written-down number, and tapped his hand against his thigh impatiently as the dial tone played; a phone on the other end rang for some time before being answered.

"Hello – is that Lily? It's Graham Longshaw – from the charms club? You posted me your number last year, just in case I needed to get into touch with you, given that I don't have an owl." Graham paused to listen. "No, no, everything's fine, it's just excitement that's given me nerves. You see, I've had an idea you're going to want to hear, but I'm going to need some help..."

* * *

 **AN:** Thanks again! Next update to follow in the next few days.


	2. How to win people and influence friends

**Chapter 2: How to win people and influence friends**

Given that she was several months pregnant and that two of her year-mates had been killed the day before, Lily Evans looked remarkably energetic as she strode into the café where they'd agreed to meet later that day. Her eyes swept across the worryingly chintzy room, and she grinned as she caught sight of Graham, who'd occupied a table in the corner; he was staring in consternation at the half-completed cryptic crossword on the back of the newspaper in front of him. As she walked over to his table and took a seat, he started in surprise.

"Lily! I'm sorry I didn't notice you – I tend to get a bit wrapped up in these damned things. Thank you so much for coming here – do you need to make any checks?"

"Don't worry about it, Graham – and yes, if that's alright?" At his nod, she brought her wand out, and, surreptitiously, muttered a few charms under her breath (Graham caught some variant of a revelio charm, but everything else was new to him); seemingly satisfied, she leant over to examine his eyes for the slight glazing which characterised those under the Imperius. "What was the function of the spell we created at charms club in your seventh year?" She asked; his reply - "a charm to act as a short-term magical splint for broken bones." satisfied her, and she relaxed into her chair, sending him a slightly sheepish grin.

"I'm sorry about that, Graham. But I'm sure you can understand my cautiousness; especially given, well, what happened yesterday. Need to do any of your own?"

"No, it's okay." He replied. "And I hadn't even thought about how strange this might look after what happened to Ellis and Smithson yesterday; I know you were in their year, but did you know them from, uh, what you've been doing after Hogwarts?" He still wasn't sure how to broach the question of Lily's involvement, or lack thereof, with Dumbledore. Most muggleborns he knew of that had joined Dumbledore's cause effectively disappeared from sight, but – presumably in part because of her engagement to James Potter – she'd remained in the public eye to a degree. Lily looked away, and let out a sound that was half chuckle and half sigh.

"Yes, I'd met them a few times after Hogwarts, so to speak; they grew up very quickly after they left, though we weren't really so close, even then. But what I meant is that Charlie and Phil were caught in quite similar circumstances to our meeting – they'd been contacted by someone pretending to represent a group of wizards interested in joining the cause against Voldemort, and, well, they were caught off guard." She sighed, but turned back to look at Graham with a small smile. "At least they went together; I can't imagine how either of them would have felt if they'd lost the other."

She paused for a few moments, letting Graham pour her a cup of tea; a few minutes passed as they exchanged pleasantries. Although the two of them had never been enormously close, they'd become friends in the last years Graham had spent at Hogwarts. Muggleborns generally acquired a passing acquaintance with each other, particularly through the discreet explanations and support older students provided to their younger counterparts, but Graham had only really got to know Lily when he joined Charms club in sixth year, looking for somewhere to further his skills after Madam Pomfrey had, regretfully, informed him that she would no longer be able to instruct him in healing. Lily's brilliance at charms and Graham's newly acquired focus had made a good match (spurred on by joint resentment at the newly-imposed career restrictions); the two had retained a casual acquaintance in the years following Graham's departure from the Wizarding world.

Eventually, Lily steered the conversation back on-topic. "I'm sure my wedding arrangements aren't what you wanted to talk about, Graham – though I do hope you and Jessica will be able to come! What exactly is it that you were so excited about?"

"Well." He began, before stopping to think about how to approach his proposal. "Hypothetically speaking, what do you think would happen if He-who-must-not-be-named disappeared forever, right now – if Dumbledore won the war?".

Lily thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose that a lot of people would come out of hiding, and there'd be a magical law crackdown with a lot of people brought to account for what they'd done. And a repeal of a few laws? I'm sure that the statute forbidding muggleborns working as healers and in the ministry would be repealed, for one." She grinned at him. "And a lot of people would stop dying, of course."

Graham nodded. "Well, that'd obviously be a good thing – and maybe you're right, and I could get a job in St. Mungo's after a bit of specialist training. The thing is – well, I've been thinking about this for a while now, actually. What do you think the odds are that things really would change after You-Know-Who? The muggleborn careers policy won Minchum the last election, and – at a time when muggleborns are less intrusive on wizarding life than they've ever been before, given that most of them, present company excepted, are in hiding or are dead – why do you think that the wizarding public's would do an about face and decide that they've secretly always liked us?"

Lily made to answer him, but paused, consternation crossing her face. "Don't you think that there not being anyone to rival Dumbledore's influence would make a difference?" She asked; but Graham was already shaking his head.

"Not really, no. You-Know-Who's been in action for less than ten years; and in the thirty between the fall of Grindlewald and his rise, did Dumbledore being as powerful as he is really change the way people thought, or acted?" He sighed. "God knows he's had enough on his plate to deal with in that time. But I know enough about him – and I'm sure that you do – to say that he's not going to become a dictator, and he's not going to impose views on the wizarding public. And, as I said, this is me imagining what would happen if Voldemort just disappeared overnight, and he's not shown any signs of that so far."

Unsurprisingly, the grim image which Graham was setting out did not prove hugely pleasing to Lily, who had started to frown as she listened to him speak, and was looking distinctly uncomfortable by the time he'd finished.

"So, why exactly are we meeting, then?" she asked, a touch of irritation entering her voice. "I'm sure it's not because you wanted to unload your doom and gloom on me, although if it is, I have to say that I've plenty of ways to get my fair share of that already, and I'm not inclined to get down in the dumps thinking about another one."

"No, no – I'm sorry." he replied, "and that's definitely not the point of this. What I was building up to was: if you accept the idea that you're not going to be able to just "change the public's mind", at least not in the short term, what would the best way to transform society without of killing everyone you disagree with, or just plain don't like?" Lily laughed a little at that, and averted her eyes in thought for a few moments, before catching Graham in a thoughtful green stare.

"Well, I suppose, ultimately, you'd need a new Wizarding public. Convince some people to agree with you, and drown out the voices that don't with an influx of new supporters on your side, although how you'd manage that I've _no_ idea. Some kind of magical union with Ireland, maybe? That said, even though they're not much different than Britain, I'm sure pigs would fly before any Minister risked his career getting into bed with another nation."

Graham nodded. He hadn't actually thought of anything like Lily's proposal before, although it would certainly have transformed the electorate; but he was sure that, even if by some miracle the magical community consented to it, the muggle ministries would kick up hell at any such jurisdictional shift; after the introduction of Irish home rule, the split of Ireland and Britain's ministries into two separate bodies had been carried out swiftly – a rare piece of muggle co-operation largely spurred on by conservative politicians in Britain by the fact that the Irish tended to have an inconveniently liberal approach to issues of blood.

"What if I told you that I'd found a way to do just that – to create thousands of new magic users on our side?" Lily's face froze, and she casually moved to edge her chair away from the table.

"You're not suggesting some kind of magical breeding program, are you? I mean, that's bad magic – really bad magic, as in the 'I should be talking to Dumbledore about this' sort. Not to mention that all of those Frankenstein experiments - homonculi, cross-breeds, golems – have never gone anywhere before." Although she'd not yet made to leave, she'd started to fidget with her bracelet, which, Graham realised, was probably a portkey she was preparing to activate – he rushed to reassure her.

"No, _god_ no, nothing like that! I've never had the brains or the stomach to come up with that sort of thing, anyway – and magic's not really been my focus at all these past few years. No, what I was going to suggest was something that Muggles have come up with all on their own. Basically, when a man's infertile, or, I suppose, when you've got two women in a relationship, or a single mother, the muggles have come up with a way for men to donate their, uh, sperm so that a baby can be born. Nearly a thousand of them are being born every year in the UK, and I'd assume that's a number which is only going to go up when the muggle government properly endorses it like they've done in America."

Unsurprisingly, Lily was very quick to catch on, and she lit up in excitement.

"So, you're saying that, if you found a way to replace their... samples, you'd be able to get hundreds of new wizards every year, raised outside the wizarding world's influence? I – well, I can't even imagine the changes that'd bring, especially once those children grew up!" Graham knew that this was the easy part of the conversation; now he needed to undercut what he'd just said.

"Well, the problem with it, really, is the extent of the violation we'd be committing by -" he was cut off in his tracks as Lily slapped her hands down onto the table in excitement.

"Seriously? To _hell_ with violations, Graham. I know I don't like what you said about politics earlier, but I'm pretty sure that you're not wrong about it, either. Something really, properly radical needs to happen, whatever and whenever that'd be, for things to change." She took a sip of tea and grimaced a little at the temperature. "My whole childhood was a demonstration of the things that magic could give you, and, for my sister, what not having it could take away from you. Can you honestly say you know anyone with magic – even with the way that things are now – who'd want not to have it? I know that Charlie and Phil wouldn't have given it up, even if they'd known what was going to happen to them."

Graham's own younger brother had also been born without magic, and only his parents' determined work to quash any resentment had managed to partially smooth over the cracks that jealousy and separation had created after Graham had received his Hogwarts letter and his brother been told that he wouldn't be getting one of his own. The fact that Graham hadn't visited his parents for almost three years was significantly related to his own worries about rekindling that hurt; the explanation that he wanted them kept away from the war was a convenient (and partially truthful) excuse.

"Anyway," Lily continued, "unless you're planning on arguing against yourself, I'm on board – on the assumption that you wanted my help?" She laughed at the look of surprise on Graham's face – he'd clearly been expecting a tougher sell. "I _want_ to change the world, Graham. James has never expected me to be a good little housewife, but I know the kind of career I want to have; and I know it's beyond my reach." Both of them sat in contemplative silence for a minute as they finished their tea; at length, Graham reached into the satchel he'd brought along with him, and withdrew a short list.

"Basically, Lily – oh, and before anything else, thank you so much – I'm pretty out of touch with charms and enchanting; or, at least, I've not really gone anywhere with them since I left Hogwarts – term breaks have given me a chance to keep my skills up, but I've really focused on healing and not much else." Graham had decided to study muggle medicine on the basis that, if he wasn't able to take up a career as a healer, he'd work as a doctor in the muggle world, and surreptitiously provide medical care with a carefully concealed magical component. "I've probably only thought of half the things we'll need to do to make this plan work, but a lot of those ideas – things like semi-permanent notice-me-nots to get around the muggles staffing sperm banks, ways to secretively maintain "stock", and so on – are just beyond what I'd be able to do on my own. More than that, though, I'd just appreciate having a mind like yours to look at this whole idea - poke holes in it, fill in other holes, that sort of thing."

He passed the list to Lily, who quickly skimmed it – not without raising her eyebrows at a couple of items - before putting it into a pocket; she sent Graham a grin.

"I'm sure that this is manageable with some research and time, and I'm very happy to have a think about potential problems and solutions! Besides -" she said, resting a hand on her swollen belly, "while this one's on the way, James would be happier if I stayed indoors 24/7 in any case – this'll give me something else to do with that extra time." Although it was difficult to see exactly how far along Lily was, she'd clearly been pregnant for several months, and, Graham suspected, she was increasingly being held back from doing tasks for Dumbledore – extra work would very likely serve as a welcome reprieve.

"Of course, I can imagine that James would be feeling protective of him – actually, is it a him or a her?" Although he suspected that magic could relatively easily determine the gender of an unborn baby, a spell or potion to do that had not, to the best of Graham's knowledge, yet been created – a somewhat surprising fact given the fact that some wizarding families still insisted on determining inheritance by strict primogeniture.

"Well, I asked James if he wanted me to get the muggle test to see – what's it called again?" ("An ultrasound scan." Graham supplied.) "but James said he was happy not knowing, and I was happy either way – so, I've no idea yet! Well, James is certain that it's going to be a boy, because Potter firstborns apparently tend to be, but I suppose we're just going to have to see on that front – I'm due in July or August, so a couple of months after our wedding."

The two of them spent another few minutes talking about the baby – in particular, its name, which Lily was determined to ensure was relatively normal ("Sirius had a great-uncle called _Betelgeuse_. Can you imagine?") - while they finished what was left of the tea, and Lily worked her way through several pastries, evidently intent on taking advantage of the chance to eat as much as she wanted while pregnancy provided an excellent excuse. Eventually, Graham made his excuses, and went to pay up – ideas that could change the world aside, he was still a medical student, and there was still another week of work to suffer through before the end of the Hilary term and a much-needed five-week break.

"Shall we meet at mine in a week, then?" Lily asked Graham, joining him as he made his way to the exit. "And, actually, is it alright if I talk about this to James? I don't really like the idea of keeping secrets from him, especially with things on our side of the world as tense as they are, you know?" Graham had no issue with this, and –with a newly acquired glow that had as much to do with his excitement as with the cessation of his hangover – Graham walked with Lily around to the alley behind the café, where, once they were safely out of sight, they both disapparated with a pop – leaving no trace of having been there beyond the owner's confusion that her lights were still on after her fuse had blown.

* * *

The last week of Hilary term passed quickly enough for Graham, especially as his lab sessions ended on the Wednesday, leaving just a few tutorials to break up the packing – and parties – which always characterised the end of an Oxford term. Jessica had told him that she was going to stay with David for a couple of weeks before coming back to Oxford to look for a bit of part-time work before term started again; even if the new Thatcherite government hadn't yet cranked up tuition fees, money was still tight for her – lacking as she did the parental support and funding which Graham enjoyed.

Although he wasn't at all looking forward to the confrontation, Graham knew that failing to explain the fact that he was explicitly going to ignoreJessica's advice would only end up being more hurtful to her if he tried to hide the fact that he was doing so. As she packed on Friday, he walked into her room, which was a sight messier than he'd expected it to be. Jessica had never been a huge fan of fashion, and certainly hadn't paid a great deal of attention to her appearance when she was in school, happily bearing the ruddy complexion and muddy hair which nature had granted her on a figure which she'd only really grown into in her last year at Hogwarts – but, never having had a huge number of her own possessions before, she'd acquired a taste for clothing and a reluctance to throw anything away - a combination which led to the disaster zone which arrayed itself before Graham.

"Having fun there, Jess?" he grinned, "You _do_ know that you've only got a single – muggle-appropriate – suitcase to take, right?"

"Yes, _thank you_ , Gray – you're even more helpful than usual today, I see!" Jessica said through gritted teeth, as she retrieved one last piece of clothing and threw it onto the precarious pile she'd assembled on her bed. "Now, do you think that you can help me with this? I've never had the eye for detail that you do."

Jessica's own talents, in fact, had never lain particularly with wand work, although she'd been a dab hand at transfiguration – her friendship with Graham had granted her competency in charms and defence, and had given him a leg up in Arithmancy and Potions. Graham, after confirming that she just wanted to pack what was on her bed, was happy to oblige; with one sweep of his wand, he cleared Jessica's floor, focusing as he guided clothes to her cupboards and toiletries to her washbasin. With a harsher wave (and a muttered " _Pack_ " - probably the best new charm of the past year, by his estimation) most of his former girlfriend's clothes forced their way into her suitcase – a slight tap to the top of the bag and a few moments of quiet casting expanded it just enough to fit everything in (and not enough to draw notice), before one final sharp slash of his wand zipped the travel-case shut.

Jessica beamed at him, before using her own wand to draw into existence an extendable handle for her bag (itself a highly fashionable product of her imagination). "Brilliant! Thank you so much – and you have _got_ to teach me that spell you used for packing some time, that's way too useful for words." She winced as she tried to heft her bag, and Graham obligingly added a mild featherweight charm to the bag as he replied. "Well, it's an easy enough spell, though you need pretty clear visualisation for it to work out. But I was actually hoping I could talk to you for a bit, if that's okay?"

"Sure, of course." she replied, beckoning him to join her on the edge of the bed. "Is everything alright, Gray?"

"Yeah, everything's fine with me, Jess – nothing to worry about. No, I actually want to talk about the idea I had last week – when we were drinking after you told me about Ellis and Smithson, I mean."

Jessica scoffed. "Oh, you mean the idea for robbing the sperm bank that you've been working on all week? You know, the one that I told you was a terrible one, and also the one which you've literally been scribbling about on pieces of paper which you should really just vanish or leave in your room?" The combination of Graham's eyes almost falling out of their sockets and his rising blush was an odd one, and Jessica couldn't help but giggle at it before sobering a little. "Gray, I'm not dumb enough to miss that level of blatancy, though I'm glad that you're telling me in person – but, in honesty, I've done a little bit of thinking of my own over the past few days. We've been talking about it, David and I, and I think – well, obviously he's not telling me exactly when – but I think he's going to ask me to marry him in a few months, and I think I'm going to say yes." She waved away Graham's delight and congratulations, though she couldn't stop the smile which colonised her face.

"I know, I _know,_ very exciting news and all the rest, and you are _not_ to tell anybody else. The point is, though, that I thought about what I said before – about having kids for the cause. And the thing is, my kids will be muggleborns if they have magic, and they'll go through something like we did. And, well," she sighed, "maybe it's selfish, and maybe it's an unfair thing to ask of families who aren't expecting a magical child. But I want my children to have as many allies as they possibly can have when they grow up, and to be able to look forward to a world where they won't be outcasts – and this is the fastest way I can think of for that to happen. Especially if they end up with bloody _Hopkins_ as a surname."

Graham laughed along with her, having happily nodded as she made her way through the conclusions he'd planned on drawing her to. "So, not planning on following matrimonial tradition and renouncing your 'Handsworth', then?", he grinned, though Jessica rolled her eyes at him. "I mean, putting aside the fact that Hopkins is a name which will _never_ touch mine, I'd want to keep my name to remember my parents, anyway. But I _am_ very excited for everything to start – we're going to talk to his parents about arranging things while I'm staying at his."

She trailed off, and stared at the wall, somewhat despondent – leaving Graham to put words to the unspoken follow-up. "What about the magic talk? I know it's a horrible thing to think about, but it does need to _be_ thought about; it can't be a sword of Damocles over your head forever." Jessica nodded, casting her eyes down to her hands. "I think I'm going to tell him at the end of next term. It'll be a long time before any date we set, and give him time to reconsider things over the summer, I suppose. Will you help me when the time comes?"

"Of course!" Graham nodded, slinging an arm around her shoulders to give her a quick hug. "And, more to the point, if things _do_ go wrong, I'll just Obliviate him and we'll try again until they don't. It'll be a breeze!" They both laughed, and Jessica hugged him back, before getting to her feet and casting a glance around her room in case she'd missed anything. "Well, setting aside our plans to violate muggle protection laws, I think I'd better be off – I'm meeting David and his parents at Brasenose, and they'll give us both a lift from there." Graham escorted her to the door, where she gave him another hug. "Have a great few weeks, Gray – and don't do anything too insane while I'm gone, okay? I much prefer you when you're being a helpful little house elf for witches who can't pack their own bags, you know." She turned to open the door, and was halfway out before turning back to mention that she'd "call from the Hopkins' phone when I get the chance, and tell you the number in case it's ever needed, okay?" - then she was gone, disappearing into the rarity of a sunny March morning in Oxford, leaving Graham profoundly relieved to have skipped an argument he'd been dreading.

Going back to the living room, Graham spent a moment establishing a magical fire in his hearth before drawing a small packet of Floo powder from his pocket to make what must have been his first trip by floo since he'd left Hogwarts. Taking a moment to prepare a clear enunciation, he tossed a pinch of powder into the fire, and, with a crisply spoken "Godric's Hollow!" he was whisked away to explain to Lily why it was a brilliant idea for her husband to break a great number of laws and put his life at risk.


	3. Breaking the world (for beginners)

**AN:** Thank you for reading so far! I just thought I'd clarify a few points about this fic:

\- I'm going to keep things moving, so don't worry – I won't be lagging things down in conversations and nothing getting done for too long. My personal pet peeve is that genre of story where sixteen chapters are spent with Harry shopping for magical bobbins in Diagon Alley and the fic ends up abandoned before the end of first year, after 300,000 words which mostly rehearse canon.

\- I'll be updating this on what I hope will be a twice-per-month basis – pending exams, other obligations, et cetera.

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Breaking the world (for beginners)**

Graham's first impression of Godric's Hollow was that its mantelpiece clearly needed to be higher if James and Lily weren't planning on having all of their guests brain themselves on their way out of the floo. After James' raucous laughter and Lily's fussing over him died down and he was steered to a seat by the kitchen table, however, his second impression was of a house very much loved by its owners.

Although Lily told him that it had only been built after the second world war, it appeared that James' flair for transfiguration had created a place which could just as well have been a venerable family home: while the resplendent oak beams which bore the weight of the ceiling could have been James' initiative, the understated pastels and tastefully appointed fixtures seemed more likely to be the result of Lily exerting a degree of stylistic sanity over her husband. James, after all, had never shied away from employing the most horrific palettes imaginable in his pranking career at Hogwarts.

Despite his former pranking pursuits, James' adoring gaze as he watched Lily busy herself in preparing tea for the three of them suggested it was just about possible that he'd managed to mature a little after three years with Lily; it was certainly a transition from the veritable cold war that their relationship had – at least outwardly - been in Graham's last year at Hogwarts.

"So – oh, thanks, Lils." James began, taking the cup of tea Lily offered him. "What's this whole idea of yours about? Lily told me it was some revolutionary plan to change the world, but that's not exactly specific – she said you'd probably want to tell me yourself?" He grinned at the sight of Graham staring incredulously at Lily, who had the decency to blush a little.

"Well, in my defence, I thought he wouldn't believe it unless it came from someone who really knew what he was talking about!" Lily offered weakly, though by this point, Graham was smiling as well.

"Alright, then. So, James – do you know how babies are made?" Asked Graham, drawing James' amused retort that "I would have to be pretty damned stupid or lucky if I had this" - he pointed at Lily - "on the way without realising! Um, the baby, I mean, Lils. I'm obviously lucky to have you, who I love and care for very much."

"Okay, okay – no, I know, but it's worth asking that to preface my next question: did you know that Muggles recently discovered a way to do that _without_ the man?" He waggled his eyebrows at James, and grinned at him.

James snorted. "Piss off," he replied, "Lily's taught me about eckletricity and robits and firelegs and all that muggle stuff, and I know how it works enough to know that that's definitely impossible."

Lily put her face into her hands, and Graham raised his eyebrows even further, his grin widening.

James paled. "Oh, Merlin, Longshaw. You're actually serious? That's _disgusting_! I mean, how the hell does that even actually work – and why would anyone even _do_ that?" His pale face took on a worryingly verdant tone. "So, uh, how does it work? Is it one of those robits, or some kind of a -" he cut himself off, shaking his head. "Actually, just tell me what this is all about. I'm happy to take your word for it."

After a brief reassurance that the process wasn't nearly as sinister as anything which James' imagination was probably conjuring, Graham explained the wide scope of his plan to James, while Lily filled in to explain the spells she'd spent the week working on and how they fit into the plan. James' revulsion had quickly turned to curiosity and interest, but his initial excitement had faded to introspection by the time Graham had finished his explanation.

"Well, I can't deny that it'd be a prank to shake the ages, make no mistake – If you think about it in number terms, there'd end up being ten times as many wizards as there are now in a hundred years, if not more when your new wizards and witches have kids of their own. And yeah, I'm not going to say that the idea of more wands on our side isn't a good one -" (Graham looked away in slight embarrassment as James said this) "- but the fact of the matter is that, as it is right now, I don't know if the Wizarding world could cope with this many new wizards coming along at once."

Graham frowned. "Well, yes, but that's sort of the point – I mean, to really get things to change by soft power, so to speak -" James cut him off, shaking his head.

"No, no, no. I get that – and the idea's interesting, to say the least. But think of it this way: how many new wands does Ollivander make in a year? Because it's not thousands; I know from my dad that it can take him a few days to make a wand, and for all that your prospective wizards could be brilliantly talented, it's pretty damned likely that, if there was a wand shortage, they'd be the ones that ended up with the short straws."

James grimaced, brushing his hair out of his eyes distractedly. "And that'd would go for being allowed to go to Hogwarts, being allowed to get jobs, not being targeted by You-Know-Who, and so on for basically everything. If you get thousands of wizards and witches to be recognised in society, with enough training that they're not vulnerable any more, then that'll be brilliant – I've just got no bloody idea how you'd get there. You'd need to do more than just getting them to be born, anyway."

Any protest that Graham might have had at James' critique had died in his throat as James laid out his problems with Graham's plan; an uncomfortable silence fell on the three of them, until James abruptly drained his mug of tea, banging it down onto the table once it was empty, a glint in his eye.

"Don't be so glum, Graham, Lils – I wasn't trying to shut all of your plans down! What I'm getting at is a key principle of the noble art that is pranking – when you think it's not going to work, you've got to make your plans bigger. Why do you think that all of the pranks that those geniuses, the Marauders, - who will remain unnamed - perpetrated at Hogwarts were so insane and incredible?" (Lily rolled her eyes.) "It's because whenever obstacles got in the way, they went straight through them like a charmed knife through butter, making their plans grander and crazier until the obstacles stopped mattering. What I'm saying is, this idea needs to be _bigger_ if it's going to work; you're going to need to plan your way through these obstacles if you're planning on doing more than just creating a giant underclass of wizards that'll have the same lot – or worse – that muggleborns do right now."

Lily's face slowly lost its dubious expression as James continued, green eyes lighting up in excitement.

"So, things like making sure that new magic children know what they're getting into before they get to Hogwarts, finding new ways to get them wands, supplies, and so on, making sure that they actually get a magical education before Hogwarts, and making sure that they're safe from He-who-must-not-be-named. Those wouldn't be bad ideas on their own if we just applied them to muggleborns in general; and we wouldn't even need the ministry's magic-born registry to find where these new magicals are, we could just use the sperm bank's own records!"

This was an opportune moment for Graham to cut in.

"Well, I think we actually are going to need that magic-born registry, even if we could track people down without it. Think about it this way: if Voldemort does win, or even if he's just got decently informed eyes and ears in the ministry, he's going to hear about what we'll be doing a bit more than 9 months after we start, and do..." he trailed off, and James finished his sentence.

"Bad things, yeah? I get your point. So what's your plan?"

Graham grimaced. "Well, in all honesty, my plan is basically you."

There were a couple of seconds of confusion as his hosts processed this, before Lily gasped. "You mean-"

"Unfortunately, I do. If this is going to work, we need someone who knows the ministry, and won't raise eyebrows by being there, to get their hands on the record. From the research I've done, nobody at the ministry knows exactly how the registry works – it records information every time a child first uses accidental magic, but without that they only have the Trace to, uh, trace magic. And if we take it away from the ministry, the first time they'll be able to identify new wizards and witches will be by Hogwarts letters, when they go out. If this is going to work, we _have_ to get the book – I'm amazed that You-Know-Who hasn't made a move on it already, in honesty."

Graham watched the silent conversation that followed between James and Lily, which – despite taking only a few seconds – seemed to go on for much longer. Finally, Lily sighed, and twitched her wand at the teapot, which obligingly refilled her mug.

"It's a lot that you're asking, you know." Lily demurred, staring into her tea. "The ministry's security is pretty tight; I understand that you're asking James for that exact reason."

"And I'm going to do it." James met Graham's eyes, and grinned at him. "I've not pulled one over the ministry yet – so why don't I start with something big?"

And with that, the rest of the afternoon was lost to plotting, until the kitchen was streaked with shadow and sunset faded into twilight. By the time Graham left, happily sated by the meal which James' effortless spellwork had ushered into being while the three of them talked, he had the distinct feeling that his idea was, by some miracle, about to worm its way into reality.

* * *

March passed into April, its early spell of good weather giving way to the temperamental showers which characterised the season. The ministry captured four death eaters – a much-needed success story – and Voldemort retaliated by derailing a train near Birmingham, coincidentally providing an excuse for the muggle government to advance its plans to privatise the railways out of the demonstrably unsafe hands of the public sector. Beyond these events, however, a plan which would change the world was, very quietly, being put into motion.

Instead of preparing for the year of experimental work which he was meant to start in the Trinity term, Graham had quickly decided that he was going to confund his supervisor into giving him a good – if not remarkable – mark. He was going to need the time and thought-space that medicinal research would otherwise have taken up.

Part of that thought-space was consumed supervising the brewing of an obscure branch of the polyjuice potion which had long been discarded as pointless. One of the many horror stories which Graham had learned about when he'd been studying to be a healer was what happened to children who had been conceived during the brief trend in the late 1800s for couples to use polyjuice potion to paper over the cracks which infirmity and unattractiveness opened up in relationships; the children that resulted grew up looking increasingly similar to their polyjuiced parents, and the paternity tests which followed gave the first – and last – professional polyjuice model the shock of his life when he discovered that he was, by blood relation (and hence, Graham suspected, by genetics), the sudden father of seventeen children.

Given this obscure knowledge, Graham had chosen to brew the mutatis mutandis variant, which caused the user to take on a random appearance – originally created as a surveillance tool, until its users realised that each subsequent use would transform them into a different person, making it impossible to maintain any single disguise. On the same basis, he expected, treating any _donations_ with a diluted dose would shake things up enough to ensure a diversity of gene-pool, and avoid the awkward situation of a magical world where half the population were siblings.

Polyjuice only really needed to be supervised semi-regularly, however, and Graham used the rest of the time to brush up on his notice-me-not and disillusion charms, before using them to scout BPAS' London clinic, which housed the nation's only sperm bank, and reporting back to Lily with everything he learned; if he hadn't been about to subvert the entire basis of the system and render his knowledge somewhat irrelevant, it would have been a salutary and informative way for a doctor-in-training to spend a few weeks.

Lily, on the other hand, was hard at work preparing for her wedding, which – after being forced to fend off an attempt by James and friends to co-opt the process from her to "save her from the stress" – she was enjoying immensely. Outside that, though, she had also been working on the problem which Graham had asked her to resolve – creating the actual mechanism that would underpin his whole system. Predictably, she'd realised, Graham's proposed solution had been incredibly overcomplicated – he'd always preferred the sledgehammer approach to the scalpel one, which should have been something of a problem given that he wanted to be a doctor. His plan had involved confundus wards which would have the doctors making mistakes, throwing away the wrong sort of donations and unwittingly substituting in the ones they wanted; beyond this, they'd need to regularly sneak into the facility to maintain stock, all while ensuring that no muggle authority became suspicious or caught sight of staff doing their work incompetently.

Lily had taken one look at those plans and decided that it was a good thing that Graham had got in touch with her after all. Her solution was far simpler than Graham's. After samples had been taken and placed in one of the several storage cabinets at the clinic, a particularly clever ward – carefully inscribed in several locations by Graham under her instructions – would vanish the contents of a donated vial, then use a switching spell to replace it with a magical sample, stored under preservative spells elsewhere, instead – a process which meant that the way which the muggles ran the clinic would be largely unaffected by their plan. The layering of a very weak notice-me-not charm (Lily liked to think of it as a "Somebody Else's Problem" charm) on top of this ensured that even a vigilant nurse or doctor would simply lose interest in any questions which this process might somehow raise. It was, all in all, a brilliant piece of spell-work for its subtlety; as Professor Flitwick had told Lily, who had been one of his favourite students, the true test of a charms master was not in doing something incredible, but in making it seem as if they were barely making an effort to do anything at all.

By the middle of April, and several weeks ahead of schedule, Graham and Lily realised that everything they needed to prepare was ready. Graham just needed to activate the wards at the clinic, once more under cover of notice-me-not. So it was that, with a strange sense of anticlimax quite unsuitable to a plan to revolutionise the world, a press of Graham's wand to Lily's ward and a muttered _Incipio_ set everything in motion, giving Graham and Lily about nine months to work out how they were going to do literally everything else which they needed to.

Any celebration that Graham might have planned was cut short when, just after apparating back to his flat, he was surprised by the phone ringing; he had after all been talking to Lily just a few minutes before, and she was his only regular caller.

He picked up the receiver, and was surprised to hear the panicked voice of Jessica on the other side.

"Oh, Christ alive, Graham, thank Merlin you're there – Dave just caught me doing my hair with a wand, and he's asking me what the hell's going on, oh God, oh God, I didn't think anybody could see me, and-" She was taking deep, gasping breaths, her voice trembling every few words in panic.

"Jess, it's going to be okay, yeah? Stay calm. You knew that this conversation needed to happen at some point – it's just going to be now, and I'm going to help, so don't worry, okay? Are you on your own right now?" Graham was trying to keep his voice level, but he couldn't entirely prevent his nerves from seeping through; he'd hoped that he and Jessica would have been able to properly plan the revelation.  
"Yes, for now. I told Dave I needed to make a call, and he's upstairs in his room-" Graham cut her off.

"Right; you need to apparate here, so you can side-along me back with you; we're going to have this talk together, so don't worry. Okay?" He waited just long enough to hear her agree, then hung up the phone, and rushed back to his room to grab the bag of magical knick-knacks and toys which he'd accumulated over his time at Hogwarts. Hearing a loud pop, he went back into the living room, where Jessica was leaning against the wall, eyes clenched shut, gasping for breath.

"Jess, it's going to be alright – I promise." Graham patted her shoulder consolingly, and Jessica looked up to meet his eyes, doing her best to give him a shaky grin.

"What've you got there?" She asked, looking at the tote bag which he had on his shoulder.

"Just a few learning aids," he reassured her, "to show Dave some fun things about magic once we've broken the news. Are you ready?"

Jessica nodded, and, taking his arm, steeled herself, and spun the two of them out of their living room and into David's – where, having come downstairs to check on Jessica, the sight of his friends appearing out of thin air naturally caused him to faint dead away.

* * *

Mornings for David were typically a slow-run affair, in which half an hour could pass between becoming conscious and finally making the reluctant decision to get out of bed. As he heard a voice from what felt like a long way away mutter " _Rennervate_ ", though, he had the bizarre sensation of transitioning from total unconsciousness to complete awareness without stopping on the way.

"What the hell's going o– wait, how are you even here, Graham _?_ " David became aware that his head was resting on Jessica's lap, and Graham was leaning against his bedroom wall.

Graham did not immediately answer his question.

"David – did you ever wonder why Jess and I have always been so cagey about the boarding school we went to before Oxford?"

"Yeah - and why an orphan could even afford to get into a private school in the first place, and a hell of a lot more besides – wait, hold on. Seriously, what the HELL is happening? How are you here – I thought I saw you appear out of bloody nowhere!" He sat up, and looked to Jessica. "What – what's happening, Jess? Did I have a nervous breakdown or something?"

For a second, the temptation to lie to David flickered across Jessica's face, before she sighed and looked down at her boyfriend.

"No, you haven't had a breakdown, David. But I need to tell you something I should have told you about months ago. You know what you saw a few minutes ago – when my hair was tying itself into a plait?"

At his hesitant nod, Graham took up the conversational baton.

"It wasn't a trick of the eye, Dave. This is going to seem insane, but, well - _Orchideous!_ " he flourished his wand, and a bouquet of tulips burst from its tip, which he placed into a mug on the bedside table, "- the truth is that we're both wizards, which means that we're able to do all kinds of magic - all the way up to turning princesses into frogs."

"Or turning cups into vases," Jessica continued, doing just that to the tulips' receptacle.

David looked from Jessica to Graham in shock. "Um, guys. I know what's possible and what's not possible, and on the basis that actually doing what you just did is impossible, you're pulling some kind of ludicrous, nonsensical trick on me for some insane reason."

Again, Graham saw Jessica's face twist in agony before it settled once more into resolve.

"Dave, love, I hate lying, and I really, really hate lying to you – so I'm going to be direct."

She pointed her wand at a book on David's table, which began to morph endlessly – for a second, it was a mouse, before it became an hourglass, then a toucan – as it continued to flow from shape to shape, she turned her head away and looked at David, who was transfixed by the display.

"Graham and I were both born to normal families – our parents were like yours, and Graham's brother is like you. But we were born with the ability to do magic; and when we were eleven, we were told that there was a separate magical world, hiding in the cracks of the one we live in; a world filled with wonderful things -" the book was a star, glowing with a soft inner light - "- and horrible ones." She lowered her wand, leaving a grinning skull in the place of the book, before a final swish of her wand left the book lying there again, none worse for wear.

"And that world's been kept secret from the mu– from the real world for over a thousand years." Graham continued, as David continued to stare at the book. "The first thing that we were told when we arrived at the school where we learned magic was that we had to keep it a secret, from everyone that we knew. If we told anyone, our wands would be snapped, and we'd be made to forget that magic had ever existed at all."

"And the only exception to that rule – the only one which won't bring the cudgel of the law down on our heads – is that you're allowed to tell your spouse about magic if they're a mug- sorry, a non-magic person, which the wizards call a muggle. I was going to tell you after we got engaged, but, well, you saw me today." Jessica finished.

The ensuing silence stretched for nearly five minutes, as David stared blankly at nothing; neither Jessica nor Graham felt able to break it. Finally, David spoke again, still not looking at either of them.

"I have a few questions which I want you to answer for me." He began, his voice subdued. Seeing Jessica's nod, he continued:

"Does this magic stuff mean you've made a pact with the devil?" ("No, there's no such thing as far as magic knows.")

"Okay – what about demons, occultism, anything? Are you pagans?" ("I don't think there's really any religion to it, though we might have celebrated Samhain at school?")

"...can anyone learn to be a wizard?" ("I think it's something genetic.")

These questions carried on for a few minutes, as Graham and Jessica filled David in on the basics of their education, how many wizards there were, and some other general trivia. Finally, though, David turned to Jessica, and asked one final question.

"Have you ever used your magic to -" His voice hitched, "- to do anything to me? Change how I feel, what I think?"

Jessica's face crinkled in sympathy. "I swear, Dave – I've never, I _could_ never-"

"And how can I BELIEVE that?" David leapt to his feet, gripped by a sudden fury. "You're both these, these... _insane_ magical people who can do anything they can imagine, so how do I know you haven't, I don't know, made me love you? How can I trust _anything_ I know about you?" Jessica shook her head violently as he laid down his accusations, but it was Graham who quietly responded to them a moment later.

"You can trust your feelings because you're feeling as angry as you do now, Dave. You're right – there are horrible, powerful potions and spells which can make you want to do anything that the person who used them on you wants you to do. But they're not subtle things. They wouldn't let you squabble about essays, and they definitely wouldn't let you be afraid that you were being influenced by them. Jess loves you, mate – and I know that you love her too, and that's as real as anything ever was."

David looked at Jessica, who was staring at her feet, for a moment which seemed to stretch out for far longer than it had any right to. Finally, though, he sighed, and turned back to Graham.

"Can you go outside for me? You can wait in the living room or something, I don't mind – my parents are out, anyway – but I need to talk to Jess on her own. Please."

Graham looked to Jessica, who indicated that this was fine by her, and made his way downstairs, sinking into an overstuffed armchair as he waited on the quiet conversation upstairs that was just beyond his hearing. Exhaustion from the conversation and the day preceding it seized him, and he slipped into sleep.

Nearly an hour passed before David came down to the living room, and shook Graham awake – more roughly, thought Graham, squinting at his assailant through bleary eyes, than was strictly necessary. David grinned at him, beckoning him to come upstairs.

"So, Jessica tells me that you've got a box of magic gizmos to show me? Because I want to know _everything_..."


	4. Building a better tomorrow, today!

**Chapter 4: Building a better tomorrow, today!**

The hour – almost two, David informed Graham as he led him up the stairs – which had passed while Graham had caught up on his sleep appeared to have done Dave a power of good. The confusion and hurt which he'd been radiating when he'd asked Graham to leave had transitioned to an almost child-like excitement, a grin etched onto his face.

"So, Jess has been showing me a few bits of magic, though mostly just telling me about your world – but I've got to say, I'm more excited to see a few of these gadgets that you've brought along!"

Graham nodded as he followed his friend into the room, before reaching down to retrieve the satchel he'd snatched from his room a few hours before. Although he'd never really been the kind to go for Zonko's, he'd always had a fascination for contraptions (his father worked as an electrician, and Graham had grown up with ready access to a modern tinkerer's workshop), and he'd taken every opportunity he could to pick up the magical equivalent insofar as his allowance permitted.

Jessica smiled up at him from her perch on the bed, which, Graham noticed, had remade and enlarged itself in the time he'd been gone. "Show him your globe, Graham, I can't think of a better one to start with." She had composed herself since he'd last seen her, but there were still slight tear-tracks; it had clearly not been the easiest of conversations.

"Great idea!" Graham grinned, and spent a couple of moments rummaging before he retrieved the memento of his NEWT project, setting it down on the table.

"A snow-globe – which is different to a Christmas memento how, exactly?" David was squinting at the globe, though, mercifully, he hadn't tried to give it a shake yet. Graham quickly directed his attention to the set of dials which he'd affixed to the bottom.

"NEWTs are a bit like A levels – there's an examinable bit, but there's also a coursework module for some of the exams, and this was my effort for transfiguration and charms." Graham leant over to David, handing him the globe. "You see that village in the snowglobe? Try twiddling the middle knob, there you go -"

David gasped in shock as the snowglobe magnified its view twenty times over, leaving him staring at a lively farm-yard being tended to by a pair of children as their mother milked a goat nearby. Graham showed him the other two gears, which controlled direction, and let him play with it for a minute.

"So, none of those people are actually real, don't worry." Jessica supplied, leaning over to peer into the sphere. "I actually helped David out a bit on this. We found an unused classroom, cut the legs off a round table, and morphed the landscape out of that – and all the little people were simulacrums he made to populate the world he'd made."

David smiled, and tapped the glass – only to recoil in surprise as the farmer's market he was watching was thrown to the ground by a shockwave, sending its inhabitants scuttling for cover. Graham cringed, and tugged it out of his friend's hands.

"Yep, uh, it's a little bit alive, I should probably have mentioned that. They'll calm down in a minute and get back into their previous patterns – but it's only a bit of animation magic, nothing to worry about – they're not really scared. Something else?"

"Aha!" Jessica had been riffling through Graham's satchel, and triumphantly withdrew a slightly ageing paper packet. "Can we give a few of these a try, Gray?" At his nod, she tore open the packet, and withdrew a few sweets, handing one to each of her friends and taking what looked like a flying saucer for herself.

"And _what_ do these do, exactly?" Asked David, dubiously eyeing what looked like a gobstopper, as Graham squinted to read the writing on the losenge he'd been given, before turning to reply.

"Basically, there's a magical sweetshop – Honeydukes – which sells really good sweets, but it also has a line in enchanted ones. I always brought a mixed mystery bag, because it was just much more fun to see the things that they could do. Bottoms up?"

As one, the three popped the sweet they'd been given into their mouths, and waited a moment for the effects to kick in -

"Alors! Je n'ai pensé pas qu'il serait une lozenge du language – j'ai oublié comment parler Anglais!" Graham laughed, before watching his friends for their own reactions.

Jessica giggled in delight as she was borne aloft by the whirligig powder which had replaced the sherbert in her flying saucer, lying back to relax on thin air – but David's reaction to his own sweet was less relaxed, and he swore in shock as his skin transitioned from its habitual brown through to blue and began to cycle through a range of entirely un-natural colours.

Seeing David's shock, Graham blushed at the realisation that he was entirely unable to offer comprehensible reassurance to his friend, but Jessica gracefully kicked off from the wall, latched onto her boyfriend's shoulder, and tugged herself down into a hug.

"Dave, don't worry, love – it's just a temporary thing, it'll wear off once you're done with the sweet. Besides -" she grinned, pinching his cheek - "I think you're pretty dashing in aquamarine!"

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, until David remembered with a start that his parents were due to return from their excursion to the theatre shortly, and Graham and Jessica hurriedly reversed any of the spell-work which they'd carried out. Graham wished them congratulations and good luck with breaking the news of their engagement to David's parents, before making his way back to his apartment for some well-earned rest.

* * *

About a hundred and fifty miles away, on the other hand, James Potter and Sirius Black were on a very different sleep schedule, as they lounged in a late-night café in Soho, preparing themselves for a strictly less-than-legal caper.

"I tell you, mate – I've really been missing a trick, not coming here before. This place is incredible!" Sirius giggled into his coffee, watching the street outside, which was hosting a veritable carnival of night-life, not all of it strictly or indeed slightly legal. An excitingly accoutred woman caught his eye from across the street, and gave him a wink which was only literally above the belt; Sirius grinned back, before James cuffed him around the head, not without laughing a little himself.

"You can work your charms later, Padfoot – for now, it's about time for us to head off. Do you trust yourself to pay the bill?"

Although he feigned offence at the implication, it nevertheless took Sirius five minutes to count out the change for the coffee and cakes that he'd spent the past hour indulging in, before he joined James outside to make their way to the ministry's backup entrance, a disused bathroom a few hundred meters away. As they walked, James filled his friend in on the rest of their plan.

"So, you know most of the plan, but just to be clear: all we actually want from the Department of Education is the magic detecting stuff – the newborn registry, that is. Anything else you need to know, Padfoot?"

The two of them – having donned a pair of robes apiece – walked in silence for a moment, before Sirius responded, uncharacteristically subdued.

"I just need to know that this is worth it, James. If we get caught at this, it'll drop the whole order in the sink, and you and I'll probably get carted off to Azkaban, whether it's for the graveyard shift or for the cells."

James turned to look at his friend, a wild grin crossing his face.

"Of course it's worth it, my furry friend! The registry's going for a bloody good cause – I'm sure you'll end up neck-deep in it, but it's not my place to tell." He thought for a moment, before continuing, a little more sombrely. "More importantly, though, if you-know-who takes over the ministry, he'll get access to all the muggleborns and their families, and I doubt he'll be sending them gift-baskets."

Sirius snorted at the thought, before sobering up a little as they reached the derelict (and mysteriously undeveloped) WC they'd been heading to.

"Shall we, then?" He asked, grinning at James. As one, they cast a suite of silencing and scent-masking spells, before entering the bathroom which served as the ministry's evacuation point in case of attack – one of Harold Minchum's more sensible policies, although its presence was a well-kept secret within the higher echelons of the DMLE. Sirius and James squeezed into the farthest stall on the left of the men's bathroom, before pulling the flush.

A quiet, matching flush marked their entry to the ministry, and even this was quickly silenced by James' gesture, before he and Sirius cautiously emerged from the bathroom, which lay just a few feet away from the minister's office.

As anybody who has worked all night at an office can tell you, a public building becomes a very different place at night. It ticks, groans, and creaks; even the most ordinary noises can become sinister. James and Sirius peeked over the gilded balcony which overlooked the atrium to check for any additional presences that they hadn't anticipated; but, aside from the night-watchman, accompanied at the front desk by the distant drone of his wizarding wireless, there was nothing but the ticking of a hundred office clocks and the gentle swoosh of interdepartmental memos drifting across the atrium, waiting for morning and the return of their intended recipients. From long, tiresome nights doing it himself, James knew that the duty-force of aurors never left their ready-room in the DMLE, a floor below them, unless they an alarm was triggered or they were called out on a report. After a moment listening with animagus-enhanced hearing, Sirius signalled the all-clear, and the two of them began to work.

James laid the tip of his wand onto the balcony, concentrating furiously, while Sirius carefully cast a disillusionment charm on himself; after a moment, the balcony seemed to melt, silently pooling at James' feet, before flowing down to form a ladder, and solidifying again; another tap from James, and the ladder took on the colour of the brick beneath it.

"Smooth work, Prongs." Sirius muttered, before carefully lowering himself off the edge and beginning to climb; James donned his invisibility cloak, before joining his friend in climbing the three floors down to the offices of the department of education.

Some distance below, Sirius was carefully manipulating the latch on the other side of the window he'd reached; after a few moments, he hissed in satisfaction at his success, and carefully began to open the window. As he shimmied through, however, he heard a distant chime, and turned to peer back out of the window.

"James!" He hissed, as loudly as he dared. "There's a bloody watchman on the top floor!"

Eyes widening, James slid down the rest of the ladder, grabbing onto the window-ledge to slow himself, before ramming his legs through.

"Hold onto my legs, Padfoot!" He whispered back, before letting the ladder go, swinging back and away from it as Sirius kept him from tumbling to an untimely demise six floors below.

" _Reparifarge!_ " James muttered, as loud as he dared, tapping his wand against the makeshift ladder. He flinched as it rushed back upward, regaining its colour as it went, and flowed back to the balcony it had been not a minute before. Sirius dragged him through the window, and the two of them crouched, frozen, for a minute, ears straining for any sign that they'd been noticed – but there was no cry of shock, and – having made his rounds – the guard in question stepped back into the lift.

"I thought they didn't do patrols!" Sirius growled, still a little breathless. "D'you think he's going to check every floor?"

Sirius' question was answered for him a moment later, however, as the lift re-opened on the ground floor, and the patrolman slouched across the floor to join his co-worker at the reception.

"I think we might have caught the tail end of his route," whispered James, relief suffusing his voice. "But we need to move faster – I don't want to bring the whole department down on our heads if he does another round in a bit."

The Department of Magical Education was a collection of slightly aberrant objectives united by the virtue of being too unattractive for one of the higher-budgeted departments to take on. Sports and recreation had been consolidated into the Department of Magical Games and Sports; Accidental magic fell under the jurisdiction of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes; and the minister's office, of course, had taken over the scholarship program which was meant to fund promising students' post-Hogwarts educational ventures; its official use having lapsed, it had proved an excellent slush-fund which facilitated the ministry's policy efforts as a technically legal source of bribes for recalcitrant members of the Wizengamot.

What was left was supremely unglamorous and a hell of a lot of work for the few employees responsible for the department: an annual rejigging of the curriculum under the heavy scrutiny and influence of the various interests in the ministry (the key reason for the sluggish advancement of the muggle studies exam), the pre-Hogwarts educational committee (which managed the placement and safety of families who decided to outsource the education of their wizarding child and provided educational packages for those who wished to homeschool), and the squib integration initiative, which nominally helped squibs to find lives outside the wizarding world – or, more accurately, forcibly removed them from their families upon request and dumped them at an orphanage with a few choice memory alterations to ensure they wouldn't come back.

Unsurprisingly, this meant a lot of work and even more paperwork, leaving James and Sirius to pick their way through the overflowing folders and papers covering every surface of the office they'd infiltrated before letting themselves into the department proper – which, albeit with a slightly more organised filing system, was just as cluttered. What the two were looking for, however, was the unassuming door at the back of the office.

"Right," said James, pausing for a moment. "Shall we? I've got the door."

From his casual gossip with the overworked secretary of the department, James had learned that the department's only really magical function – maintaining the registry which recorded the first time each wizard or witch used accidental magic in Britain – lay behind that door. The Register was one of several irreplaceable artefacts in the ministry's possession – indeed, only Hogwarts' own system for sending invitations functioned similarly, and predictably, its management had been outsourced to the Unspeakables. The secretary had no idea what they did in the office, though she'd spent a happy five minutes complaining about the hours they kept.

Sirius drew his wand, and began casting a series of diagnostic spells, as James carefully carried out a controlled transfiguration, slowly melting the back of the entrance doors together until they seamlessly melded with the walls on all sides. Wizards were rarely imaginative enough to try something more than an unlocking spell when they couldn't get through a door, and certainly wouldn't assume the door had become a wall – the reinforcing spells he added to the quasi-wall would ensure it held for at least a few minutes if needed.

"I think that's most of the surface protections – all the standard DMLE monitoring charms, and a few extra alarms, but not much more than that, I think." Sirius supplied, as James rejoined him.

The chamber within was a little larger than either had anticipated, and the slight haze separating them from the thick book lying on a podium at the back of the room betrayed the layers of protections they needed to breach. Another minute passed as the two wizards analysed the wards they needed to breach, before James let out a breath and grinned, reaching for the satchel he'd prepared earlier that day.

"Unless you have some secret Black ward-busting technique you've not told me about yet, we're going to need to pull a Wormtail like we discussed, yeah?"

"I've got nothing you don't, Prongs – dear old mum was even less forthcoming on secret family techniques than she was on maternal affection." Sirius replied, smirking at James. "You're sure that you can disable the offensive components for long enough?"

"Such doubt you cast upon Hogwarts' most big-headed head boy!" James chided, as he rummaged through the bag he'd prepared. "Besides, you know I'd never let my faithful mutt burn to a crisp from the conflagration configuration they have running at the back there."

Sirius rolled his eyes, before muttering a few words and pressing his wand to the base of the wall, chiselling out a hole at ground-level which led to nowhere but had a striking resemblance to a mouse-hole.

"Right, then – let's get illegal!" Sirius grinned, and transformed into his canine counterpart. From his bag, James withdrew the facsimile which he and Lily had prepared a few days earlier; Sirius gripped it carefully in his mouth, and James turned to the wards.

"Wait ten seconds, and you're good to go, Padfoot!" And with that, he began a stream of spells, twitching his wand with each incantation as he pushed the wards back. On his mark, Sirius leapt forwards, rushing to the podium, and shifted back to his human form. Distantly, an alarm blared to life; Sirius quickly swapped books, rushed a transformation onto the replacement to give it a more-than-passing resemblance to the original, before reverting to a dog, grabbing the original, and rushing back to join James at the entrance.

Time was too short to acknowledge their success, and James ran back to the office they'd entered from, leaning out the department window and restoring the ladder he'd created before. Meanwhile, Sirius grabbed the stunned mouse which James had carefully transfigured earlier that day, and tossed it into the wards, wincing as they incinerated the facsimile, leaving a tiny charred corpse behind.

A ding signalled the lift reaching that floor, and Sirius ran full-pelt across the office, slamming the door behind him, as James reverted the transfiguration on the doors – the two of them bundled into the office they'd entered from, locking it from inside.

A distant _"Alohamora!"_ heralded the arrival of the aurors on-shift above; as James and Sirius climbed back out the window, concealments safely back in place, they heard the lead auror begin the chain of spells (which changed every night) that unlocked the room they'd just left. But by that time, the two of them were already reaching the minister's office, and – as James undid his transfiguration for the last time – were home and dry, splashes from their lavatorial exit aside.

"So, what are the wards telling you?" asked Rufus Scrimgeour over his shoulder, leaving his junior partner to do their analysis as he investigated the rest of the office.

"Well, something living went through but it's not showing as human, which is a bit weird – oh, hold on a second." Scrimgeour's counterpart muttered a levitation charm, and grimaced at the smell as the mouse's burnt body floated closer. "I think I might have found our intruder, Rufus."

Scrimgeour came over, and confirmed his partner's suspicions; nothing had been taken, after all, and they didn't have the authority or information to lift the wards for closer inspection. The mouse-hole was quickly identified and sealed, the body vanished, and the door locked once more; by the time the book's replacement was noticed, some two weeks later, the short incident report which Scrimgeour made in the aurors' log would prove entirely unhelpful to the investigating Unspeakable.

* * *

Although Graham was delighted to receive the Register, both he and Lily had too much on their plates to put it to any good use in the following months (although Graham was amused to discover as he flipped through the book that his first piece of accidental magic – recorded alongside the location, his name, and the time of its manifestation – had been the detonation of a bowl of unappealing baby-food which had evidently violated the sanctity of his taste-buds).

Elsewhere, Voldemort launched an attack on Vindolanum (Magical York, and the last Roman magical settlement) and razed it to the ground, forcing a full-scale Order fight-back that captured seven death-eaters at the cost of the Prewett twins ("Not even slightly worth it – I wish we just killed the bastards." James confided in Graham, five drinks after he broke the news). Minchum's ministry launched an enquiry into the failure of the Aurors to come to the aid of their constituents, before canning it as soon as public attention shifted away; and Graham felt powerless as he struggled through the batch of coursework he needed to complete ahead of his finals work. His focus left him feeling confident enough that he was set to pass in every subject, but it did nothing to fix the dissatisfaction which his life at university had started to bring.

The problem, Graham thought, was that he'd thrived in university while he had thought that the magical world simply wasn't willing to accept him. Indeed, he hadn't had a choice except to thrive, and put magic behind him. But – for all that he was forcing it to do so every inch of the way – that world was reopening itself, and he'd decided what he wanted to do in it – indeed, what he wanted to d o to it. All this meant that – emboldened by the few days of relaxation which he'd enjoyed after his last exam – Graham made a very big decision.

"You're doing _what_?" Predictably, Jessica did not react well to the news when he broke it to her when they were punting that afternoon.

"No, I really have told the the faculty supervisor I'm stopping at the Bachelor's degree – I don't want to carry on and finish my doctorate, Jess. And I know, it's crazy, but..." Jessica was not interested in this attempt at an explanation, but she let Graham babble on for another minute before interrupting him.

"I get your plan and I know that it matters to you, Graham – but how the hell are you going to survive if you don't have a real job to go with it?" Her eyes softened, and she punched him gently in the shoulder. "Are you really, really sure about this? I know you usually land on your feet, but I would really miss you if you weren't here with me."

Graham smiled, and pulled his friend into a hug. "I'll miss living with you too, Jess – but in all honesty you're going to be thinking about moving in with Dave soon enough, and I'd just end up getting in your hair, which would be a huge waste given all the time you spend keeping it so silky." He turned away to grab the punt, deftly pushing the two of them clear of another boat, before twisting back to face Jessica, smiling mischievously. "Besides, I think that I've sourced a lovely little mansion in the country for my plans – don't you think I'd make an excellent magical Professor X?"

The idiocy of the image was enough to get a laugh from Jessica, and she turned the conversation to happier topics – above all, the spectacle of Lily and James' upcoming wedding, and how David might react to his first properly magical event.

* * *

As it turned out, a few weeks and a patient interviewee in Jessica had relaxed David's new-found enthusiasm for the magical world. In particular, his excitement had been tempered by the sombre fact of the state which the Wizarding world was in; although Jessica had reassured him that there were people fighting against Voldemort, and that they were in no imminent danger, unmitigated wonder proved rather more difficult to maintain in the face of the bigotry and hostility with which much of the wizarding world regarded Jessica (let alone what they thought of him).

Nevertheless, magic itself was still hugely exciting to David, and Jessica had reassured him that there was nothing to worry about – this was to be a gathering of friends, and there would be a fair few muggles which Lily had invited as well.

"Are you _finally_ ready?" he hollered at Jessica's door from his seat in her flat's living room; having discovered that she had a suite of spells to help her prepare for a formal occasion, his patience had worn thinner than he'd expected. A moment later, though, the door opened to reveal his fiancé, resplendent in a shimmering navy dress, and his breath caught.

"You see? Not a bad result for a little time in front of the mirror!" Jessica smiled at him, before giggling and tugging him up for a kiss. "Shall we? Graham's gone ahead to pick up our portkey, but he should be back any second -" The sharp crack of apparition punctuated her point, and a cheerful Graham appeared, holding up a heavily gilted invitation.

"You're in for a real treat, guys – Lily's managed something properly special. Dave, do you remember what I told you about Portkeys?"

"Yeah, yeah. Keep my arms and legs loose, but don't let them go crazy, and let go when you tell me or get a faceful of ground. Do I just hold onto the card like this?"

He grabbed the corner to demonstrate, and Jessica quickly copied him. He was not expecting Graham to tap the card, however, and a wave of sudden terror crossed his face.

"Wait wait wait I'm not ready I'm not -" but his protests came too late, and the three of them were yanked off their feet and into nothing too quickly for the ensuing scream to confuse the neighbours.

* * *

 **AN:** Sorry for the extra wait on this! As happens rather too often, I've been quite caught up in exams. I hope you've enjoyed this over-belated next instalment!


	5. A strict no (happy) returns policy

**Chapter 5: A strict no [happy] returns policy**

* * *

True to Graham's word, Lily's planning had conjured a truly spectacular display – one matched to the wedding of the pre-eminent students in charms and transfiguration of their generation. As Graham, David, and Jessica thunked down in the small copse of woods which Lily had designated as the landing zone, there was at first very little indication of the celebrations beyond the warm illumination of fairy lights and the distant sounds of conversation. Then, out of thin air -

"Sirs, madame – might I offer our warmest welcome?"

In front of their eyes, a figure formed from thin air. It almost resembled a butler – which is to say that its top half was rather like a butler, and its bottom half wasn't there at all – its face was entirely blank and serene, almost like a china doll, but its voice was avuncular in spite of this deficit. The figure paused for a moment, before continuing.

"The reception lies just beyond the forest – if you would be so kind as to follow me." And with that, it turned and floated away, leaving David awestruck, and both Graham and Jessica impressed in spite of themselves.

"That's a semi-intelligent responsive automata which Lily's created," muttered Graham to the others as they followed the creation through the trees. "Remember those little people in the snowglobe? I started to cover a little of the theory in my spare time when I was a seventh year, and they're as far as I got. But the effort and talent to create a proper, responsive one? It's just crazy."

"It's Lily, you mean." Said Jessica, rolling her eyes. "In other words, it's exactly what you'd expect."

Before Graham could reply, however, they emerged from the woods, and were all, for a moment, struck dumb.

"Oh, _wow_." Murmured David. "You said it'd be special, but this- it's like another planet or something."

Great spires of shimmering marble had been pulled from the earth around the edges of the field, curving inwards to form the skeleton of a dome around the proceedings. Between the spires, a gentle shimmering of the air – underlaid with strands of gold – indicated the strength of the wards which had been woven around the wedding.

"Would sirs and madame care for a drink?" Their attendant drew from thin air a laden drinks tray; once it had ensured that the three of them were satisfied with their refreshments, it wished them a pleasant evening before fading into non-existence.

The three of them stood for a moment, appreciating the champagne they'd been handed.

"Well, then." said Jessica, at length. "I think it's time I introduced some people to my fiancé!" She took David by the arm, smiled at Graham, and led her paramour into the throng of people before them.

* * *

The wedding's layout was more cabaret than church, with exquisitely decorated tables clustered around a central stage (laden down by a dazzling wedding arch, a small lectern, and an enormous flower display); but Graham was more overcome by the spectacle of the wizarding population which was on display. It had been a long time since he'd dared to venture into magical society: after his quiet relocation to Oxford, he had felt it to be rather too dangerous to venture back into Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade lest he be recognised for the muggleborn he was. Not for the first time, he was overcome for a moment by an aching sense of loss: common sense or not, he had lost so much – a whole world, in fact – from going into hiding.

"Mr Longshaw, I presume?" A squeaky voice startled Graham from his despondence, and he looked down to see Filius Flitwick smiling up at him.

"Professor!" he blurted out, a little flustered. "It's so good to see you – how have you been?"

His diminutive former head-of-house smiled benevolently, drawing up a sound-dampening spell around the two of them so that they could talk properly.

"Please, call me Filius – you're not a student any more, after all! I sensed that you were, perhaps, a little overcome by the occasion? I imagine you've been a bit out of touch with wizards these past few years."

Graham nodded gratefully. "It's nothing bad, just a bit strange, I suppose – like seeing a long-lost friend."

"So, what are you up to these days, Graham?" Asked Filius. "I believe I'm right in thinking you planned on venturing into the world of muggle medicine?"

Graham quickly caught his former teacher up on the basics of his post-Hogwarts life, before hesitating for a moment, then deciding a little discretion could do no harm.

"I'm actually working on a few magical projects now I've graduated – some really exciting stuff. It's not got far yet, but you'll definitely see the results in a few years if I have anything to say about it!"

Filius smiled. "I certainly hope so! I'm sure you know how distressing I find the current situation. I truly do hope you'll be able to take up the position you deserve in our world, Graham – oh, I think it's time for the ceremony! Lily's tagged all the place-cards, so yours should respond to a point-me; such a clever girl, really, and such a delight. Have an excellent evening, Mr. Longshaw!"

* * *

As if Graham needed another reminder of Lily's skill as a charms mistress, when he took his place at the table he'd been assigned – some distance from the stage – he was startled to discover that he suddenly seemed to be right next to the stage and in his original place, all at the same time. As was usually the case with magic, this apparent violation of space appeared perfectly innocuous in spite of its impossibility.

Graham was joined at the table by Jessica and David, who gasped at the spatial distortion as he sat down, as well as one of Jessica's dorm-mates from Hufflepuff, Florence Branstone, who siezed Jessica's hand at the sight of Jessica's ring and promptly burst into excited chatter.

"Oh, Jess, it's beautiful! Have you and Graham set a date yet?"

There was a moment of awkwardness, before Graham laughed it off. "Sadly not, Florence – we broke things off a while ago – we just work better as friends, you know? But let me introduce you to Jessica's _actual_ fiance – this is David."

"I'm a muggle, so please let me off the many mistakes I'm sure I'll be making today! Charmed to meet you." David supplied, leaning over and proffering his hand to Florence, whose eyes had widened at this admission. A second later, she smiled, and shook his hand, looking him up and down.

"A muggle, Jess? How adventurous of you! I assume that he swept you off your feet – strangers from different worlds collide, and so on? He's certainly tall, dark, and suitably handsome." David and Jessica both blushed a little: David had certainly swept her off her feet when they had first met, in that their introduction had constituted colliding hard enough to knock each other to the floor.

"Something like that, yes." Jessica smiled, putting her hand on David's. "Oh, hello, Professor!"

Graham smiled as Pomona Sprout joined them at the table – he'd kept Herbology as a NEWT subject when he'd thought he could become a healer, and although he'd never been blessed with a particularly green thumb, he'd always enjoyed Professor Sprout's tuition – and respected the protectiveness which she bestowed on Jessica as an orphan under her care.

"Good to see you all!" the professor beamed. "And such a relief to have such a lovely table – for a moment, I thought I'd be with our neighbours back there." Turning his head, Graham noticed a muggle couple at a table which had apparently been entirely reserved for their use; the woman was sitting straight-backed in her seat, a slight look of distaste on her face. She nodded at something her scowling, bloated husband was muttering into her ear, the distaste growing; Graham got the distinct impression that she had very little desire to be at the ceremony.

The professor's smile widened further at the sight of Jessica's ring – but before she could enquire further, an ethereal wedding march began to play, and they quieted down.

Graham hadn't caught sight of Lily or James that evening, and, watching the stage, he quickly realised why. The archway, empty just a few moments before, had suddenly become a corridor – from which began to emerge the wedding procession, culminating with James – dashing in immaculately tailored dress robes – and Lily, wearing a simple wedding gown that was all the more elegant for its simplicity.

What followed was – for David – rather disappointingly similar to a non-magical wedding ceremony, although the religious component was supplanted with a great deal of verbiage about the history of magic, the combining of the couple's mixed heritage, the hope for fertility to maintain the wizarding population (Graham swallowed a snort at that, although nobody noticed), and so on.

Finally, though, the vows were exchanged; James pulled Lily into a kiss which literally set the sky ablaze, as the previously translucent wards flared into shimmering gold, and the audience burst into raucous cheers and applause.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, the reception's catering was excellent: as Graham fondly recalled, house elves were if nothing else consistent in the quality of their cooking. After all, magic might make it easier to make a meal, but it certainly hadn't made Graham a better cook – all the spells in the world couldn't help on that front.

Of course, the speeches which followed the meal followed the usual pattern, although the deaths of both Lily's and James's parents opened up slots which were duly filled by James's friends – who relished the opportunity to recount some of his less successful ventures in life and in love:

"I don't think James has ever told Lily quite how long he pined over her, you know." Peter Pettigrew remarked. "But, well, I'll put it this way: I was put on 'mandatory surveillance duty' a _long_ time before she got her Prefect's badge to punish us for our mischief; and, well, sorry, James, but I still don't see what strategic value 'the way Evans is wearing her hair today' has!"

"Lily had her fair share of gripes about James when they were young, let me tell you." This from Alice Longbottom, who had been in Lily's dormitory. "But she would never tell you just how _soppy_ she got when she and James finally got together – let alone about the hour and a half she spent trying on every hairstyle under the sun for her second date with him. I still think it's a shame you didn't go for the afro!"

More sombre was Professor McGonagall's speech, the last to be delivered. After praising James and Lily – scolding the former for his mischief before praising his skill and his evidently excellent taste, and extolling the virtues of the latter – she paused for a moment, before continuing.

"One of the hardest parts of being a teacher is saying goodbye to the students you've looked after for such a long time, knowing that you're not able to protect them from the world they're entering, or to advise them on all the growing up they have left to do." She sighed, looking around the room. "And that aspect of teaching has never been more difficult than it is today. I know that I'm being a little dour and Scottish, and for that I apologise! But our world, our way of life, is under threat – and if we are to weather that threat we must stand together and support each other." Although she was still a handsome middle-aged woman, for a moment, her words seemed to add decades to her frame. Then she smiled, and the years lifted off her again.

"But the fact that – in such trying times – we can have such a joyous occasion is truly a thing of wonder to me. James and Lily Potter are both credits to their family and friends – but they are also a credit to the Wizarding world, and I wish them the happiest of lives together. To the husband and bride!" She cried, raising her glass for a toast which was echoed around the room.

Finally, James stood, and ushered the crowd into silence. "Friends," he said, smilingly (with a hint of tipsiness) - "I cannot begin to express the pleasure it is for you all to be here. That said, if words won't do the trick, why don't we see how well expressive dance will fill the gap?" With a laugh, he flourished his wand, and the tables – by now empty – sunk into the ground, and the guest's chairs shuddered to life, conveying their occupants to the edges of the room.

"As Ababa would say -" (Lily groaned behind him, hiding a smile). "You can dance!"

* * *

This was, of course, a hugely overoptimistic estimate of the Wizarding world's dancing abilities, but the after-dinner party was nevertheless a great deal of fun. David and Jessica had slunk off earlier in the night (for purposes Graham wasn't willing to think about) so he'd mostly steered clear of drink to ensure that all of him survived his apparition home at the end of the night. It had been a couple of hours, though, and Graham sensed that the party was dying down – so he sought out Sirius for the one piece of business he'd planned to deal with that evening. Unsurprisingly, Sirius was attempting to secure the affections of a very pretty witch, so Graham watched with amusement for a moment, until attentions were entirely rebuffed and the witch stalked away, muttering threats under her breath. Graham took this as his cue, and he went to pat Sirius on the shoulder, grabbing a drink from a passing waiter-construct on his way.

"Now, I'm no critic of ambition," he began, "but that was the famously ice-cold Amelia Bones, wasn't it – isn't she your superior?"

Sirius sighed, though he couldn't entirely prevent the grin which had stolen across his face.

"Well, I've never been faulted for ambition, have I? Maybe I should have been a Slytherin after all, you know!" He drained the rest of his glass, before shaking his head as if he was a dog shedding water, and turning back to Graham. "So, what can I do you for?"

"Nothing as fun as with Amelia, I'm guessing. I just wanted to talk to you about the deeds you mentioned earlier."

Sirius grinned, somewhat viciously. "Oh, you mean your plan for committing theft against my family? I couldn't _be_ more on board, let me tell you." Graham opened his mouth to justify himself, but Sirius wasn't finished. "You know, a few hundred years ago? There were tens of Blacks. Tons of Blacks. Whatever. But they're all gone now, because they had the wonderful Black habit of doing the dirty with cousins; and they've left heaps of land, the deeds for which dear old Mum keeps in her house because she doesn't trust the 'lesser races' with her property. And, you know – I honestly can't think of a better way to show her the finger than to repurpose one of her properties for educating muggleborns. As far as I'm concerned, it's already yours!"

"I can't begin to tell you how brilliant that is, Sirius – thank you _so_ much." He began. "It's really going to mean the difference between – wait, is that a gong?"

The deafening chime echoed all around them, before a second and a third followed it. Around them, the structure of the dome began to flicker and fade. Sirius' eyes widened in horror, but before he could speak, James' magically magnified voice rang out above the confusion.

"We're under attack!" He cried. "Get to your portkeys and get out!"

Screams and crying broke out, and the crowd thinned rapidly as people rushed to use their portkeys. Graham, seized with a sudden terror, spun on the spot in a futile attempt to apparate away – but some kind of blocking ward had evidently been laid over the whole event and he accomplished nothing but falling heavily onto his backside.

One final gong rang out, the wards by now practically non-existent, and Graham had the foresight to cast a sobering charm at Sirius, who shook his head to clear it and nodded sharply at him in thanks.

And then, with a sharp crack, the wards had fallen and everything went to hell.

* * *

Later, Graham would, quietly, be proud of the fact that he didn't have a panic attack there and then – and cringe at his general rustiness in what had been (in theory) his second best subject. Some wizards and witches had pushed their way to the outer extremes of the small crowd that had remained behind – these, Graham realised, were probably members of the Order.

Far from joining them in the wide-ranging duels that had begun, Graham quickly decided that working as support was safer and probably more useful. As far as he could tell, it was only a force of death-eaters that had attacked that evening – a very sizeable contingent, but one which seemed on equal footings.

His first patient was an elderly witch, whose spell-chain had begun to degrade from exhaustion.

" _Expelliarmus-Stupefy-Immobulus-St-Stupefy-Inflagratio-o-ossi-ossifius,"_ – As her opponent's far crueller spells began to overcome her, Graham threw up his strongest shield, buying her a few seconds, before hurriedly using an " _Episkey!"_ to close up her smallest wounds.

"Thank you, young man!" She wheezed, steeling herself. "Now get on to someone else, I'll be fine!"

And so it went for another minute or so, Graham stealing around within the ring of duellers, enervating one stunned wizard and just about deflecting the spell of another; for the couple of wizards that had been hit with more serious curses, however, he had only the time to cast the emergency stasis spell which most healers learned, granting them a few minutes before their condition degraded further. With relief, he noticed that the tide seemed to be turning in their favour; James and Lily, standing tall on the central platform, seemed to be providing a degree of tactical bombardment which was proving a crucial advantage to their ebbing compatriots – until, that is, Voldemort strode onto the field.

Although some part of Graham was consciously aware of the battle continuing around him, it nevertheless seemed as if a cloak of silence had smothered the world; time had ground to a sluggish crawl. Staring at his waxen visage, twisted in glee, Graham was suddenly – hysterically – reminded of Nosferatu the Vampyre. Was Voldemort a film lover, he wondered? Before he had a complete breakdown, however, the battle had begun again, this time with a far deadlier tilt.

Most wizards, whatever their magical strength, cannot cast the killing curse on another human being. This is not because of its potency; it is not even particularly draining to cast. The reason is that – more than any other spell – its putative practitioners make a fundamental error in trying to cast it. The killing curse does not require hate for another; it doesn't require that you wish for another's death. Instead, to cast a killing curse, a wizard needs to have the upmost lack of care for the life of their target: whether the person on the other end of their wand lives or dies has to be a fact of such irrelevance to the caster that the spell must feel no more significant than ordering a coffee might.

Such ambivalence to the life of others was beyond the grasp of most death-eaters, although they were far better at using it on muggles than on Wizards. For Voldemort, though, there was no such issue – and, in the space of a few seconds, he had already launched four such spells into the crowd of his opponents, hitting with two of them.

The conflict had reignited, and Voldemort was engaged by Flitwick and another wizard who Graham couldn't identify; although they held him off, dispelling and deflecting spells in a storm of motion, they were slowly being forced back into the defensive perimeter, which was being pushed inwards from all sides.

The help Graham was able to provide was by that point entirely inadequate for the damage that was being done to the Order, and – when a woman right in front of him was blasted from her feet, it was with a sense of dread that he strode forwards and began his own, rather less effective, defence. Shields had always been his stronger suit over offensive spells, but his opponent –a short, broad woman – was shattering each one he erected with hardly a hint of effort. All of a sudden, she squeaked with delight.

"It's not poor little Longshaw, is it?" She cried, her spells now silent but no less strong than before. "Oh, we had _such_ fun at school, didn't we?"

With horror, Graham realised that he had to be facing Alecto Carrow, his erstwhile tormentor in his first three years at Hogwarts. Before she'd graduated, he recalled, she had tracked him down one last time, pinned him to a wall, and promised, breath tickling his ear, that she would find him and show him exactly how welcome his intrusion into her world was when he was older. He hadn't been her only target, but in retrospect it had taken him longer than most to develop the mental fortitude to stop showing fear, and it had made him far more enjoyable prey to Carrow and her like.

For all that he wanted to respond, Graham's silent casting was nowhere near sufficient to do so, and he grimaced as another hasty " _Protego!"_ shattered under a bone-breaking curse. Taking a step back, he almost tripped over the witch Carrow had previously bested, and realised he could retreat no further: in desperation, he started to cast every distracting spell he could envision to buy a little time.

" _Lapidistra-Avis-Scolopendratis-Blatta-Mordaci!_ " From his wand sprang a stream of conjured butterflies, birds, cockroaches, and centipedes, which swarmed towards Carrow, who was momentarily overcome by this tide of life, forcing her onto the defensive – just long enough, it transpired, for Lily and James to unleash the best defence they could muster from the central stage.

" _Animatus Tentaculae!"_ they both shouted, thrusting their wands into the air. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, until, with a resounding thump, the static marble spires which had made up the dome burst into life around them, spearing the ground as they began to attack the death-eaters, immediately knocking a few of them insensate.

Carrow shrieked, and threw up her strongest shield as a marble column swept across her, throwing her back and away from Graham; elsewhere, death eaters were knocked back, while heavy columns thunked down to protect the wounded on their side. Even Voldemort, who had been just metres away from the defensive line, was forced back as he contended with two wizards and three pillars doing their best to impale him. Finally, it appeared, enough was enough. Just a few seconds later, the flare of a Phoenix's transportation marked Dumbledore's belated arrival; with a hiss of rage, Voldemort launched a spell at one of the spires, shattering it into a sea of shrapnel with a blast that resounded across the battlefield, and hissed the order to retreat at his followers, before twisting into nothingness as he apparated away.

* * *

The chaos of the battle – even though it had only lasted a very few minutes – took some time to die down. Voldemort's shrapnel had caused a wave of injuries, major and minor, and Graham spent a little while helping those that he could before the aurors and medical support from St. Mungo's arrived. Technically, performing advanced healing spells required a license, and Graham had no desire to draw the ministry's attention. That said, he had noticed one particular set of victims was conspicuously missing.

"Pet!" A man had bellowed. "Pet, stay down, don't move – I've found one of those damned cards, just hold on –" as far as Graham could recall, the muggles from the next table over had been hit by the shrapnel from the exploding column, before the man finally found a portkey amid the ruins of the party and escaped. With a shock, he realised that they could potentially be minutes from dying of their wounds, and rushed to the stage, where Lily and James were being interviewed by an auror, both understandably more than a little shell-shocked.

"Lily!" Graham shouted. "Lily, I have to talk to you, just give me a minute?"

As the auror nodded his consent, Lily carefully sat down, swinging her legs over the edge of the stage.

"Is everything alright, Graham? You were terribly brave today –"

"No, I'm fine, but it's some of the guests here. Do you know a muggle called Pet-something? I saw her get wounded, but she and the man she was with were both ported away without getting help.

Lily's eyes widened in horror. "Petunia and Vernon! I thought they'd left ages ago – oh, God above. Will you help her if I make you a portkey? Please, Graham – she's my sister, and Dumbledore says that James and I can't leave: it'll take hours for ministry healers to check up on them if they manage to at all."

At Graham's assurance that he'd be happy to, Lily gave him a hug, summoned a spindle that had broken off a nearby chair, and cast " _Portus_ " on it; with a wave goodbye, Graham grabbed hold of it and was whisked away from the ruins of Lily's celebration.

* * *

Graham thumped down into an unfamiliar living room, and was immediately forced to dodge the fists of a man insensate with rage, weakened by his wounds though he was.

"Vernon! Vernon, please, it's alright, I'm here to help you – I'm a doctor."

Vernon paused, before lowering his fists for a moment. "Are you one of their witch doctors, boy?" He snarled, "You've hurt us enough already!"

Graham saw that Petunia, resting on a sofa, was far more injured than Vernon, and consequently had no patience for that conversation. He sent a stunner at the overweight man, and rushed to Petunia's side as her husband crumpled to the carpet.

"Please!" She gasped, "Please just leave us alone-"

Graham kneeled down by the sofa. "I really am a doctor; a normal one, not just a magical one – Lily sent me when she saw you had been injured. Stay still – I need to find out what's wrong so I can fix it, alright?"

Petunia was still terrified, but she did at least assent to this. A diagnostic charm indicated that most of the damage was external and not serious; but one fragment had embedded itself below her sternum: with a shock, he realised that the spell also indicated that she was in the early stages of pregnancy, and – if left a minute longer – the shard could do irreparable damage to her and her child.

"Alright, Petunia. This will feel very strange – just breathe as regularly as you can, alright?"

And with that, Graham set to work on delicately extracting the shard and healing the internal injuries it had caused, wand in a frenzy of motion for a few crucial minutes. Once the shard had been removed, he turned to her external injuries, but for the most part these were superficial, and were the work of a few moments to repair. Petunia gasped, finding her skin unblemished again, and thanked Graham profusely – but by that point he had already turned to tend to Vernon's injuries.

Once Vernon had been healed, Graham helped Petunia to prop him in an armchair, before careful reviving him. A few minutes of explanations finally calmed Vernon down enough that Graham was invited to take a seat – a gesture, he guessed, of unprecedented gratitude for a wizard, even if he had just saved the man's unborn child.

"It was those damned canapés!" Vernon groused, more than a little embarrassed. "I was feeling pretty petty, so I told Pet- 'why don't we make the most of your sister's hospitality, instead of leaving it all to these bloody lunatics?' and we stayed a couple of hours longer than we needed to. Thank God we had someone babysitting Dudley!"

Graham sympathised with them for a few minutes before he decided to make his excuses. He had no idea if or when Jessica would hear of the attack, but he needed to make sure she knew he was safe. He did, however, address one last issue before he bade the Dursleys farewell:

"Mr. Dursley – I couldn't help but notice an inflammation of your thyroids when I was diagnosing you. Not to be insensitive about it, but it could very well be the cause of some of this weight you're putting on: do you want me to correct the imbalance?" It was the work of a quick spell, and another round of thanks later, Graham made to leave. Before he could go (through the front door, this time), Petunia stopped him for a moment.

"Tell Lily I wish her well, alright? I'm never going near her – or any of you – again if I can help it, but I do care." She paused, and looked up at Graham with a penetrating stare which was almost defiant. "I _do_ care."

And with that pronouncement, Graham was ushered out into the night.

* * *

 **AN:** I thought I'd take a little time to clarify my approach to canon today. Depending on your depth of Pottermore knowledge, you may have noticed that I've retconned Petunia's fallout with Lily somewhat in this chapter (and the reasons for it): in canon, let's say, she and Vernon were obliviated and given a botched healing, leaving her seething with an even greater resentment of Lily she couldn't place a reason for. By and large, I'm keeping established world-building in place (e.g. what departments the ministry has, Harold Minchum being minister – as, according to Pottermore, he was!), but I am changing character backstories and dates slightly as necessary; Minchum was not, to JK, an anti-muggleborn minister, for example. It's an approach I hope serves to preserve the original world which Rowling built while letting me tell my own story. In my headcanon, by the way, Graham went to this wedding in canon as well; but, having used far less magic in the preceding months, he was tragically struck down by a death eater. Poor sod.

Thanks again for reading – I really do appreciate feedback as to my writing, so I'd be flattered and hugely appreciative of any reviews or critique you provide!


	6. Making someone else's house a home

**Chapter 6: Making someone else's house a home**

Although Graham tried to update Lily on her sister after leaving the Dursleys, he was surprised to find that both she and James had vanished on his return apparition to the site of the wedding. In fact, the site had largely emptied out by the time of his return; as far as he could tell, only aurors and a few hastily repurposed waiter-constructs remained, picking through the debris of the evening. As he approached the wedding stage, Graham was surprised to find himself suddenly subjected to a fierce interrogation at wand-tip.

"Who the hell are you, then – another journalist come to look for a scoop?" growled a worryingly scarred auror, who Graham quickly realised had to be Alastor Moody, the renowned hunter of Death Eaters. Before Graham could answer, his interrogator continued. "And why d'you think it's okay for you to potter along to an active crime scene? People didn't die tonight just so you could get _exclusives."_

"No, no – sorry, I didn't realise things had been locked down. I was at the wedding, and Lily sent me to check up on her sister after she got hit with some debris – I was actually wondering if I could talk to her? I just wanted to tell her that I've fixed her sister up and there's nothing to worry about."

Moody was, if anything, slightly disappointed by this explanation, but he relaxed his guard a little and lowered his wand.

"Oh, I see. Longshaw, is it? Lily told me that I should expect you to turn up at some point. I'll make sure your message gets to her, don't you worry - she's gone into protection, see." Moody said, face twisted into a slightly underwhelming attempt at a reassuring smile.

Graham, noticing Moody's use of Lily's first name, decided that he might well be a member of the Order, and relaxed a little – she was clearly in safer hands than those of the ministry.

"Thank you, that's really very kind of you – and thank you for your work this evening, as well." Graham replied, managing a rather more winning smile than Moody had mustered. He turned to leave, but remembered Petunia's last request, and twisted back round again. "One last thing, actually: make sure to tell her that Petunia doesn't begrudge her? She's a muggle, and she was worried Lily would think she hated her after today, you know."

And, with Moody's reassurance that he'd pass on his message, Graham turned back, taking in the debris of Lily's wedding one last time, and apparated home.

* * *

"Oh, thank Merlin _!_ "

Graham hadn't known whether (or when) Jessica might have heard the news, but she was very evidently aware by the time Graham apparated into their shared living room and she gave him a crushing hug (one downside of his general gangliness was his vulnerability to such manoeuvres) and burst into wet, heavy tears. Graham patted her back awkwardly, and returned the hug; over her shoulder, David was sitting on the sofa, jacket and bow-tie hanging on the armrest, looking profoundly relieved himself.

At length, they had all calmed down enough to properly discuss the events of the evening.

"So, after we got back – _ahem_ , some time after – Jess said that we could probably hear something about the wedding on the Wizarding Wireless, and got her radio out." David began, taking a sip of the tea which he'd brewed for the three of them.

"So we listened for a bit – standard wizarding verbiage, wittering on about the dress and so on – but it suddenly went all breaking news on us, and that's when we heard about the attack. No details or anything, just that there had been an attack – and that six people had been killed." Jessica continued, her fists clenched against her nightgown. "I had no idea what had happened – God, Graham, I couldn't even bear to think about it. I'm so glad you're alright – I was so worried when you took so long to get back."

Graham patted her on the knee consolingly, before giving the two of them a very brief summary of the attack. He attempted a bravado he certainly did not feel, doing his best to regale the two of them with the funnier aspects – his insect-based assault on Carrow and his encounter with the Dursleys – but, a few moments later, his efforts failed him, and he sunk back into his chair, staring at nothing for a moment; he looked down, and discovered with surprise that his hands were trembling a little.

"I'm – God, I don't – _Merlin_ , I knew some of the people that died." He started, having spent a few moments listening to the slow tick of the clock in the darkened room. "I tried to help a few of them – this lovely witch who was fighting two Death Eaters at once, another man who got hit with an entrail expeller before I could put him in a proper stasis –" he shuddered, looking down again at his hands; although their trembling had lessened, the magnitude of the evening hit him again as the last vestiges of his adrenaline drained away.

"Jess – I _saw_ him, you-know-who, I mean. I was _metres_ away from him at the end – before Lily and James saved us all. And I can't tell you how it felt to be that near to him, to feel the force he puts out just by _existing._ Do you know - he killed four people without even looking! Without even paying attention, just like that and they're gone. It could have been me."

Again, the three of them fell silent for a minute. Finally, though, the clock began to strike twelve, and David spoke up, smiling at his friends.

"Graham, it's not my place to say – I have no idea just how horrible it must have been, and how scary this evil overlord of yours is – but I think I'm speaking for both of us when I say how proud I am of you. God knows what I'd have done in your place – hidden under a table, maybe? No idea. But you saved peoples' lives today, mate – and you fought those magical Nazis, and you didn't run away. That's _amazing_ , Graham – it really is." He patted Graham on the knee before leaning over to Jess to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Jess, love – why don't you make Graham that sleep-easy potion you told me about? It sounds like he could use it – and we can watch an episode of Dad's Army on the VCR or something in the meantime, if that works for you both?"

Jessica lit up, and climbed to her feet, smiling. "That's a better idea than me moping around, to be sure – if it works for you, Gray?" She leaned over and gave him a hug, then headed off to fetch her potions equipment from her room: and, although it took half an hour to brew a dreamless sleep potion, Graham's sleep afterwards was mercifully free of Voldemort's waxen visage and the crooning taunts of Alecto Carrow.

* * *

Although Graham sent Lily an owl asking how she was the next day, he received no reply. At first, this was of no surprise to him; he expected that she and James would currently be buried under the wave of mail in sympathy and concern over the attack on their wedding.

Days turned into weeks, however, and Graham still received no reply. Lily's phone line had also evidently been cut, as he went to a blank dial-tone when he tried to call her; and his subsequent owls failed to even reach their addressee, merely circling around for a few moments before coming back to roost, looking a little baffled.

Finally, Graham decided to throw caution to the wind, and attempted to apparated to –

Where was he trying to apparate to? He wondered, poised on the edge of teleportation. He was going to see Lily, but where did that actually mean? He knew where she lived – could remember bumping his head on her mantelpiece – and yet –

All of a sudden, Graham was gripped with a tremendous headache, and staggered for the support of the wall. Clearly, he surmised, once the pain ebbed away, some serious wards had been put down on the place he could no longer name or locate: he simply did not understand, however, why Lily and James evidently felt themselves to be such a target all of a sudden. Clearly, the Potters were no longer open for business.

A little later, Graham's follow-up owl to Sirius, on the other hand, proved more of a success – and, a short correspondence later, the two of them had a hasty rendezvous in an innocuous park in suburban London.

"So, Sirius –" Graham began, identification checks safely dispensed with – "what the hell's going on with Lily and James? Are they both all right?"

Sirius quickly moved to reassure Graham. "Yeah, of course – don't worry! Nothing wrong with either of them at all, though Lily's about the size of a house by now. Dumbledore has them under strict orders to stay hidden, though. He's discovered some plan Voldemort has to do with them – no idea what it is, myself, but it's something quite serious so they're in deep cover for now. Oh, and by the way – thank you for your help at the wedding. I'm sure things would have been even worse without your help."

"Well, that's better than the alternative, of course – I hope Lily's okay and that everything's in order for the birth, though – even if it's closed doors, make sure Madam Pomfrey or somebody has access or something?" Magical births were, for the most part, less complicated than muggle ones – but a qualified medical professional would certainly ease things along and make the process less painful for Lily.

"Oh, and another thing, Graham – Lily sends her apologies for your project. She told me it didn't look like she'd get much of a chance to get out for the time being, but she did say she was appointing an ambassador to ferry her ideas back and forth – me, that is." Sirius smirked at Graham, before giving him a slightly over-the-top bow. "Sorry to say that I don't have many of those tiny chocolate things ambassadors are meant to give out, but I _do_ look very fetching in my suits. Well, in my suit."

"Well, Sirius – I don't really know what to say. Thank you's a good start, I suppose – and should I fill you in on the rest of the plan I have? I know you've already been told the basics." A few minutes passed as Graham described the rest of his plan to Sirius, drawing suitably horrified sounds as he explained the technical side of the operation. Finally, it all proved a little too much for Sirius, who brightly clapped Graham on the shoulder and congratulated him on his ingenuity, then insisted that they talk about something else.

"So, now that you've proved yourself a mad scientist, why don't you really play the part with an evil lair of your choice – which is to say, I'm up for a bit of real-estate shopping if you are?" From an expanded pocket in his – surprisingly muggle-worthy – suit, Sirius withdrew a sheaf of papers, each of which, Graham realised with a start, was a property deed.

"If she wasn't as awful to me as she was, I'd feel a little sorry for mum, I suppose." Sirius supplied, shuffling the papers into order. "Since Reggie - disappeared, and Dad died last year, she's gone completely round the bend – living in that old wreck with nothing but her house-elf for company, it's not much of a surprise. Barely has the magic left to man the defences on her house, anyway – with James' cloak, I was in and out in minutes, with her none the wiser."

Sirius thumped the papers onto Graham's lap, indicating that he should look them over. "Of course, a few of these still have people living in them." Sirius continued, as Graham examined the documents. "Granddad, Aunt Cassie, and a few others are still knocking around; I left their deeds in place, and transformed a stack of papers into replicas with incorrect addresses for the rest. The wards won't let newcomers without the deeds in, anyway – most of these places have been in lockdown for years. You can take your pick, and I'll be bringing the rest to the Order for use as safe houses – can't believe I didn't think of it before, to be honest."

This was no problem to Graham, and – after an awkward jaunt into the cover of the bushes that would have looked quite suspicious to a passing muggle (for very different reasons) Sirius pulled Graham into a side-along and the first of several bizarre house viewings.

* * *

Despite the fact that he'd managed little more than to leaf through the majority of the deeds Sirius had thrust upon him, Graham knew that he'd found what he was looking for by the fourth property. The first three had been certainly shown the range of the Black property portfolio, encompassing a traditional – read crumbling – wizarding tower ("All the rage in the 1850s, apparently – a return to some made up Wizarding antiquity which never actually happened, as far as I can tell."), a hunting lodge in the far reaches of the forbidden forest which was delightfully appointed with body parts from every magical beast under the sun ("Shame about the smell, really; never did understand why Great-uncle Cygnus kept the nundu dung he found on safari."), and, confusingly, an apartment on the top floor of a block of flats in Holland Park ("That'll be Aunt Carina's place – terrible scandal when she went native and married a muggle, blasted off the family tree and passed away in a trademark Black family 'tragic accident' not a year later.") The fourth property, on the other hand, was something rather more exciting.

"Huh – I didn't realise we had something this far south." Sirius mused, looking down at a yellowing deed. "This is Lockwood Manor, apparently, and it's not been inhabited for almost a hundred and twenty years – though it's nearly four hundred years older than that? No word on the last owner, either."

Graham raked his eyes across the Tudor-style garden which had clearly, at some far removed point, been carefully manicured into a charming imitation of the larger muggle efforts of palaces like Hampton Court. By now, of course, a follow-up trimming was long overdue. A set of greenhouses (presumably enchanted for durability) full to bursting with greenery flanked a hedge-like lawn, itself subdivided by pebbled pathways and flanked by a long-stagnant moat. The suggestion of flower-beds at the far end of the garden was overcome by the reality of weeds; but, Graham could tell, this had been a dearly loved garden by one of its past owners, and was not so far removed from its past that a few well-used spells wouldn't fix a great many sins.

The house itself had also seen better days. It had, without doubt, once been a magnificent property, its two wings stretching around a courtyard with a glorious fountain. Its legacy had clearly waned after its abandonment, however: its red-bricked, crenelated façade was largely intact, but part of the roof had caved in on one wing, the fountain had crumbled away, most of the windows had broken under the pressure of the elements, and the main door was hanging off its hinges.

"It's…" Graham trailed off.

"A mess?"

"No – actually, I honestly think this would be perfect!" Graham turned to Sirius in excitement, rolling his eyes at the dubious glance Sirius was giving him.

"I'm serious, Sirius. If you open the plans for me –" Sirius obligingly tapped the deed for Graham, and its text dissolved, leaving a detailed plan in its place. "Thanks! As I was saying, this place has all the space I need – bedrooms I can expand and convert into classrooms, a proper-sized kitchen, greenhouses for a bit of early magical gardening, a great hall – with a minstrel's balcony, whatever that is – and more. I mean, it even has a separate cottage! It'll take a lot of work to fix it up, sure – but I have the time, and it'll give me a chance to start planning the rest of all this."

"The rest of what, exactly?" Sirius asked – he'd been aware that there would be some kind of muggleborn activity in the house, but nothing beyond that.

"Well, making this into the first magical preparatory school, of course!" Graham answered, grinning widely. "At first for newborn magical kids, sure – and I'm sure I'll be up to my ears along with all the other people here making sure they have the basics in hand." He sighed happily, looking the manor over again, before continuing. "But in the longer term, when they're grown up and we've built ourselves a better world? I want this to be a proper school for wizards to go to before Hogwarts. We can expand it – I know there's another few acres around the back of the house which we can build into when the time comes – and, when we get the chance, we'll properly integrate it with Hogwarts."

Sirius laughed, thumping Graham on the back. "Capital idea! And just the right balance of ambition and forethought; nice to see you living up to your Ravenclaw traits. Just promise me that you'll name the school houses 'Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs', won't you?"

"Aha!" Graham cried. "So you do admit a connection to the mysterious and as-yet unidentified Hogwarts pranksters of yore? Well, that's certainly interesting… but of course I can do that, if we make it that far." He grinned again, looking around him. "So, shall we get to the fun and exciting bit where you transfer a deed to me? I know this is the one – and thank you so, so much, Sirius; you've no idea how much this means to me."

The transfer of control over the house was a surprisingly expedited procedure, much to Graham's surprise – he had no experience of the magical world, but a drop of blood on the deed ("Pretty nasty, in theory," Sirius commented, "but practically speaking it's much faster than the registry office.") was all that Graham needed to become the new owner of Lockwood Manor.

"Oh, before I go, Graham – Lily told me to give these to you as well." From within his coat, Sirius withdrew a pair of notebooks. "A housewarming gift, I suppose - she thought a bit of advice from one homeowner to another might be helpful. Anyway, I'll see you around, probably? I'll try and keep in touch when I can, and pass messages from Lily on to you, but it's pretty damned busy in the Voldemort business, if you get my gist. Anyhow, I'll see you later!" And, with a pop and a twist of his ankle, Sirius had gone.

* * *

Of course, ownership might have been nine tenths of the law, but owning the house did very little for Graham on its own: there was still a huge amount of work to do, most of which he was not in the least bit qualified for. Reparo might have been a useful catchall spell, he mused, after one final attempt left the fountain in the courtyard in a relatively acceptable condition – but it was functionally useless once you went beyond the detailed work of repairing objects; because it tried to repair every aspect of the object it was cast on, casting on a house was rather like casting it on the earth – in other words, functionally useless (though Graham liked to imagine that, somewhere in the world, his spell would fix a random person's broken shower, leaving them none the wiser). The fact that he had been forced to sever the fountain base from the courtyard to effectively repair it put most renovation jobs out of the spell's useful range.

Luckily for Graham, however, Lily proved her abilities and her foresight with the manuals which she'd provided: her notebooks were filled with the most useful maintenance charms she'd found in designing her own home at Godric's Hollow, as well as her 'failure-proof' space-expanding rune arrays, which were certainly guaranteed for a hundred years and would most likely last a thousand.

Once he had learned these spells, Graham enlisted the help of both David and Jessica; as he'd only received the property in the middle of July, they had plenty of time to spare before they were forced back into the tedium of revision for the doctorate in Medicine which they were both pursuing.

For all that an extra wand proved helpful in carrying out the major repair work which Graham needed to complete, there was far more to be done than could be accomplished in the space of a few weeks. David had managed a little lawn-mowing and gardening (enough to make the courtyard and its lawns presentable) but had mostly relaxed and got on with his revision beyond that, enjoying the sunbathing which Lockwood Manor offered by dint of its being in Devon, the house and the greenhouses both being too risky for someone without a wand to tackle. With Lily's distant help, Lockwood was largely season-proof and pristine by the end of July – at least on the outside.

On the inside the house was a wreck; Graham and Jessica had focused more on renovating the small cottage at the far end of the grounds which they had re-appropriated for human habitation. David would lose his rights to university funded accommodation in October, when he and Jessica returned to study – so Graham had happily given up his bedroom to David, and an hour's careful spellwork had merged two bedrooms into one, leaving a much expanded living room and study area for the two medical students to enjoy on their return to university.

* * *

Although July brought Graham and his friends a month of relatively carefree working holiday in the pleasant heat of Devonshire sunlight, it proved far less amenable to the wizarding world. Voldemort was not deterred by the fact that students had returned from Hogwarts to their homes; indeed, the prospect of catching and destroying whole families seemed exciting to him, and several wizarding households disappeared in mysterious circumstances over the month, as Voldemort sought catharsis for his unsuccessful attempt on Lily and James's wedding. Not for the first time, Graham felt profoundly grateful for the fact that he had seized the tome which registered manifested magic: he couldn't bear to think of how excited Voldemort would have been if he had access to every muggleborn's address, let alone the depravities he would wreak upon them. Fortunately, though, the beginning of August brought brighter news than the sporadic attacks which had characterised the rest of the month.

"Jess!" Graham called, reading the message which Sirius' owl had passed on to him a few moments before. "Come and have a look at this!"

Leaving her manipulations of colour in the great stained-glass window which dominated one wall of the dining hall for a moment, Jessica strolled over to Graham, taking the letter which he passed her and scanning through it, along with the enclosed photographs. Then, after a moment, she squealed in excitement.

"It's a boy! Oh, wow – he's so beautiful, Graham! How long has he been around?"

Graham looked through the second page of the latter – it was, he realised, most likely a stock production given the number of people to whom Lily and James wanted to break the news from hiding, but he appreciated their including him in the circular nevertheless.

"Since the thirty-first of July, apparently – David would be happy, that makes two of them." said Graham. David's birthday had been enjoyably depraved; the three of them had ventured into London, managed to destroy their livers in the space of a few hours, and staggered back to their beds shortly afterwards at Lockwood, one hazy set of apparitions later.

"Well, that is lovely. And, honestly, it's making me feel a bit broody: I know that David and I are both going to be busy in the next few years, but, well – Harry's just so cute! Look at his little toes wiggle, it should be illegal to be that adorable." Jessica sighed, and the two of them stood for a moment, a rainbow of colour washing over them as the afternoon sun filtered through her newly coloured window.

"So, Graham – are you ever going to start looking for someone again?" Jessica asked, a few moments later. "It's been two and a half years since we've stopped being together, and you've hardly managed more than a few dates, not that there's anything wrong with that."

Graham looked away in embarrassment, and Jessica rushed to apologise. "No, no – I really do mean that! There's nothing at all wrong with whether you're with someone or not, it's just – " she sighed, looking back to her window. "Well, David and I are going to be in Oxford, and you'll be here, and – well, it's a beautiful house. But I just don't want you to be lonely; I care about you far too much." She flushed, looking away as well.

For a moment, Graham was reminded of why he'd wanted to go out with Jessica in the first place: it wasn't her looks, though she was certainly very pretty – it was how much and how freely she cared for those around her. All of a sudden, he laughed, and pulled her into a hug.

"Never change, Jess – never change. But don't worry about me, really – I'm just stuck in between worlds right now, I suppose, and I need to find out whether my life will be spent in the magical or mundane one before I really commit to anything else. Besides, what's several hundred miles to a teleporter?"

"It's much less significant than a passionate embrace with my betrothed, you ruffian!" declared David, as he strolled into the hall, grinning widely. "Unhand her at once, you devil! Oh, and would you care for sandwiches on the lawn? It's the most wonderful weather." As the three of them headed outside to enjoy the autumn sunshine, Lily's letter lay forgotten on the table – only a year later would Graham realise that the accompanying photo of Lily – exhausted, but elated as she held her son – was the last time he would see her alive.

* * *

 **AN:** Thanks again for reading! Please do leave any feedback and criticism you have for me – I hugely appreciate the privilege of having my work critiqued.

To briefly explain why the Potters went into hiding before Harry was born: having heard most of the Prophecy, both Dumbledore and Voldemort realised who it could be referring to, on the basis of Lily's (and Alice's) pregnancies. Voldemort, though, was slightly quicker off the mark – it took his failed attack on the Potters for Dumbledore to connect the dots and send both families into hiding. As my slightly melodramatic ending may indicate, Graham's changes may bring good things in the future, but, alas, they won't do very much to deter fate's determined grip.

I do hope you like Graham's choice of house. If you search "East Barsham Manor" on youtube, you'll get results showing something of a similar flavour to that which I'm envisioning here – and, quite possibly, a good deal of home-envy!


	7. The doctor will see you now:

**Chapter 7: The Doctor will see you now:**

Summer passed quickly, and in what seemed like no time at all, Graham found himself alone as he carried out his renovations. He found that he had something of a knack for household charms - there was something pleasing to him about the sheer functionality of them, the way that their designers had managed to turn magic to such specificities of human activity as washing windows or providing working plumbing to a property.

At the same time, though, Graham was finding himself increasingly frustrated at his lack of progress in every other aspect of magic that he'd taken a three-year hiatus from. His practical, front-line healing spells and a very specific subset of potions for medical use were as good as they'd ever been - but it was deeply frustrating to struggle with seventh year transfiguration and to find himself so slow off the bat in the use of his wand for dueling practice. Jess and David rarely found the time to make it to Lockwood, and the few times Sirius had offered to duel him on his irregular visits, he'd been thoroughly trounced.

"It's not that you're doing things wrong," Sirius had said, consolingly, "It's just that you're a bit behind on the practical front, and your instincts aren't there yet. The best remedy would be more practice duelling, but I get that it isn't really your focus right now."

"Anything I can do to help my complete bloody incompetence without making it my 'focus', then?" Graham had snapped - he had always been something of a sore loser, as much as he didn't like to show it.

Sirius, of course, had laughed at his snappiness rather than taking offence.

"Just do your best to be surprising - it's the best way to make up for a gulf in skill, the first time you face up against someone." He'd advised - and so Graham had tried to speed up his casting, and add some more unconventional tools to his repertoire. It was frustratingly slow going, but it was better than nothing.

On the other hand, Lockwood Manor itself was showing progress at a far greater pace than Graham had realised - in no small part due to Jessica apparating over to manage the really frustrating pieces of transfiguration that he simply didn't have the talent for. Graham still needed to prepare the expansion charms that would render the upper floor of the house a series of classrooms rather than bedrooms - but the property was clean, livable, and, if not quite up to the level of Hogwarts, could at least pass for a charming country hotel or an asylum for a particularly wealthy class of Victorian madman.

* * *

As Christmas approached, Graham spent less and less time on the house itself - instead, he increasingly gave himself over to the prospect of how exactly he was going to manage the influx of students he intended to induct into the magical world without completely losing his mind. He still wasn't sure exactly how many kids that he should expect to be born in a given year - in the last, there had been almost five hundred surrogate children born from the clinic Graham had altered, but how many of those would turn out to be magical, he wasn't sure. If the figure was around five hundred, though, that would really mean five hundred per year, which might ultimately reach nearly five thousand by the time the first group left for Hogwarts.

The best plan Graham had come up with, to that point, was to find some means of raising money, and use that to run a series of summer camps for the young magical children to attend - my first time riding a broom, basic potions, magical etiquette, that sort of thing. Beyond the three Rs, magical education certainly didn't need to be comprehensive - he, and most muggleborns, had managed to survive in Hogwarts with nothing beyond a few months' notice of their magical abilities, after all.

But even this most minimal intervention would need teachers, a way of getting children to and from school - Graham scrawled 'Portkey License?' on the corner of a page of notes - it was a hell of an operation to oversee, and Graham didn't feel like half the wizard he needed to be for it to work out. Dumbledore, he thought wryly, would have had a better plan from the beginning, let alone a better approach to preparatory schooling.

Any further musings, however, were interrupted by the chime of the magical registry which Graham had carefully stored on a shelf of its own by his desk - so he reached over to grab it, and flipped it open to the most recent entry. Although he knew that it'd be a good while before he'd find out about any of the surrogate children he was interested in, it was hard for Graham to suppress his interest in the first manifestation of a wizard's magic – even if it felt a little illicit. Still, he supposed that – he peered down the list of names in search of its most recent addition – the young Miss Granger would hardly mind somebody knowing that she'd managed to turn off everything electronic in her house to get a bit of sleep.

Although, Graham realised with some surprise, the implication was that she was another muggleborn. From the very few that had attended Hogwarts – maybe a tenth of the students overall, or a little under that – almost a quarter of students that had been registered in the time Graham had had the birth register appeared to have done something which involved a piece of muggle equipment. Perhaps some wizards were less averse to muggle things than they'd show on the outside, or fewer muggleborns than he'd realised accepted their offers to attend Hogwarts?

Unfortunately for Graham, his thoughts were brought to an abrupt end when a pair of men apparated onto the front lawn. Before he managed a proper look at them, one slumped to the ground and lay there, motionless – the other stood defensively over him, and wove an enchantment which drew a shimmering net around the two of them not a second before a blast of light burst against it, signifying the arrival of a masked pursuer.

"Oh dear, oh dear – you chose to run somewhere where there's nobody home?" laughed his assailant breathlessly, before she calmed herself. "And you're defending your friend with a shield that'll snap like a twig if you don't weave it fast enough?"

Sirius didn't respond; to her jibe – he was too busy working at the shield in question. Each additional incantation added another layer to the network of glowing wires which encased him, while lumps of earth ripped themselves from the ground to provide a physical component to this defence. Unfortunately, this did nothing to deter his assailant, who gleefully began to spit out curses at her pinned target, rather more quickly than he could compose new layers of protection.

"Imedimenta, flipendo, tarantagrella, bombarda, bombarda, diffindo, – oh, this is exciting, isn't it? Like unwrapping a present, one spell at a time." She giggled. "Now, what should I -"

"Stupefy!" A bolt of red light lanced into her side from a few metres away, and – gasping with the exertion of casting a stunner while maintaining a disillusionment charm– Graham fell to his knees. Behind him, Sirius let out a bark of triumph, and dropped his shield.

"Thank Merlin! And you, of course." he said, grinning. the moment of elation passed, and Sirius became a little more serious. "It's bad, Graham, or I'd never have come here – I just didn't have a choice. Remus is in a bad way, Poppy's out of the country, and we can't take him to Mungo's – I need you to help him."

Graham didn't understand why Lupin hadn't been taken to St. Mungo's, but he was astute enough to know when the time for such questions was; he lifted him from the ground with a careful levicorpus.

"Alright, Sirius," he said, "I want you to handle our extra guest, and obliviate the hell out of her on top of whatever else you do. You-Know-Who can't know about this place, alright? Oh, and – is there anything I need to know about Lupin before I treat him?"

Sirius paused as a series of emotions fought their way across his face – but he seemed to firm his resolve, after a moment.

"The curse was silent, a brown-black colour, and he took it in his side. It's some kind of internal effect I've never seen before, and – and – he's a werewolf, okay? I know that can affect treatment. I swear I'll explain after, alright?"

Graham paused a moment longer than he ought to have, but eventually, he nodded, and conveyed Lupin into the house.

"If anything, that's good news - I understand that he'll have a bit more resistance than he might otherwise. Can you deal with her? Whatever else you do, though, obliviate the hell out of her. I can't have You-Know-Who knowing about this place."

* * *

Graham had been right about his patient, it later transpired; although the spell he'd been struck by was indeed a nasty one, his heritage had protected him from the worst effects of what the diagnostic spell he'd cast revealed to be the entrail-twisting curse; rather than a full magical surgery, Lupin ended up needing little more than a couple of intravenously delivered potions and a sleep charm to keep him still while they took effect.

Once Sirius had dispatched his assailant to the Order ("with the last few days completely blitzed, don't worry") he and Graham sat in the main hall, sipping at the bottle of gin which Graham's brother had sent him for his birthday some months before. Lupin, Graham had said, would take an hour or two before he stirred from his sleep.

"How long has Remus been a werewolf, anyway?" Graham asked, at length; the question had been eating away at him since Sirius had told him.

Sirius sighed, and looked away for a moment. "He was a werewolf since he was a kid, you know - Dumbledore let him in, but it was a struggle to keep his furry little secret - that's what we called it, James, Peter, and I - well, a secret while he was at school."

"Honestly, I feel a bit stupid, in retrospect - I mean, all those times he was ill around the full moon? the poor bugger. He's lucky to have had you lot, anyway." Graham said.

Sirius smirked, and drained his glass; the sun had started to sink towards the horizon, and patterned light from the stained-glass windows was spilling into the hall. "So, about this place - what do you see it becoming, if we make it through this damned war?"

This wasn't something Graham had actually thought about - he'd focused on the immediate goal of flooding the world with muggleborns. But what about after he'd stopped that- or, stopped that from being his immediate goal "I suppose," he said, "a school for everyone, magically speaking - in the long run - a pre-prep for wizards, so to speak. Everyone'll end up a bit better at magic, and possibly, if we're *really* lucky, grow up without some of the prejudices their parents drop onto them. For now, though, a helping hand for muggleborns will be more than enough work!"

A magical chime alerted the both of them to the awakening of Lupin, and they rose to go and greet him - about an hour before Graham had expected him to awaken.

"That werewolf constitution again," grumbled Graham, "messing with my medical timings."

Sirius smiled at his disgruntlement. "I think Remus might have a sheet from Madam Pomfrey somewhere, actually - a brief guide from her experience with treating a werewolf, that sort of thing. On which topic, actually - would you mind, if this sort of thing happened again -"

"Not at all. I'm happy to take any chance for practice I can get!" Graham replied (with perhaps a little more enthusiasm than good taste would strictly permit, a characteristic he shared with most medical students).

* * *

Remus, as he'd insisted Graham call him, was very grateful to have a healer on-call for the times when he was injured; he and Graham hadn't connected to any great extent when they'd been at Hogwarts, but the two of them were quite similar, and found that they got on quite well. If anything, Graham enjoyed the prospect of additional company; Jessica was so often on-call, now that she'd begun working in actual wards, that she was half-dead when he actually managed to get in touch, and in any case she and David seemed to spend most of their free time planning their nuptials.

More than that, though, Graham was still struggling with the guilt that had followed his decision to flee the wizarding world in his final year at Hogwarts. While he'd been studying medicine, he'd been able to convince himself that he was in exile from a world that hadn't wanted him. The more that he prepared for a life within it again, though, the more he'd started to feel craven in the presence of people who were regularly risking their lives for what was essentially his future.

So it was that, a few weeks after the new year, Graham offered his services as a medical adjunct to the Order in general; most of the work he'd needed to carry out on the manor had been completed, and the rest could be put on hold until its prospective students were nearly of an age to learn there.

For all his nerves at the prospect of actually taking part in the war, there was still a part of Graham that found working as a healer thrilling - it felt almost like a window into the life which the ministry had denied him when they'd prohibited muggleborn healers in his final year of school.

* * *

For the most part, the help Graham offered was not particularly glamorous. What he mostly ended up doing was visiting wizards and witches who were already recuperating from their injuries; St. Mungo's provided excellent care in the immediate aftermath of incidents, but they had neither the funding nor the ward space to retain patients for the duration of their recovery. Happily, this pastoral care did serve to offer some solutions to his schooling concerns.

"So," Graham asked, on one of his regular visits to Delia Thistle, a muggleborn from two years above him at Hogwarts, "aside from your current occupation of helping to save the wizarding world, what plans do you have for the future, when we've won?"

Delia smiled weakly; Graham took care to show a positive outlook to his patients on the basis that there was plenty of gloom to go around without a pessimistic doctor stepping in on affairs.

"Well, what I wanted to do when I left Hogwarts was to teach," She said, "but - even assuming that we do eventually defeat You-Know-Who, I'm not sure where I'd manage to do that. The purebloods won't let a muggleborn tutor their kids, the rest can't afford tuition in any case, and Hogwarts doesn't have any vacancies - I suppose I could try and head to the States, but they've got a strict no-entry policy on England right now, of course."

Graham winced sympathetically; MACUSA had imposed the anti-immigration policy on British wizards as a retaliation against their problems with blood supremacists some years ago, but the greatest victims had been really been muggleborns being turned away from their borders when they came to America to seek asylum. Before answering, he cast a careful diagnostic on Delia, who had been recuperating from a muscle-atrophying curse which had crippled her in a skirmish some weeks before.

"So, firstly - we can actually downgrade your potions regimen again; you'll need to take one of these a day, and then we can start thinking about some basic physiotherapy to get you on your feet again." He rested a small case of vials on the counter by her recliner, and looked at Delia thoughtfully, before continuing.

"On the job front, I might actually have a couple of ideas as well. Obviously, for now your focus should be on recovery; but would you mind if I give you my phone number? Once all this blows over, I think I might be able to help you out…"

* * *

Although Graham found working for the Order (although, at his request, he hadn't been inducted into it, and beyond the identities of his patients had no idea of its membership) to be an excellent salve for his conscience, it did very little to solve the problem of his increasingly scarce savings. Sirius had managed to secure him a consistent supply of potions ingredients - apparently the apothecary in Diagon Alley regularly supplied the order with the necessities for healing potions as a gesture of support - but Gamp had regrettably proved that you couldn't conjure food, and Graham was highly uncomfortable at the prospect of asking anyone for money (especially after everything that Sirius had done for him), even if his expenses were relatively limited.

Happily, the answer to his problems revealed itself on one of his irregular trips to the grocers' - the use of stasis charms meant that he didn't need to venture to the nearby muggle village more than a couple of times a month.

"So, Mr Longshaw - what is it that you get up to?" The grocer had asked him, as she bagged his vegetables. "I see you around here every now and then, but I haven't seen you about town outside then."

He smiled at her, desparately grasping for an excuse until one came to mind.

"Actually, I spend most of my time working on one of the old estates out of town, up by the moors." He said, smiling as convincingly as he could. "Basically, I'm there as a handyman-groundkeeper sort of thing - just keeping an eye on things while the owners are off jetsetting wherever they've decided to spend the winter."

"Oh, so you're good with your hands?" She asked, and giggled at his blush. "Only, the drains in my cottage have been giving me hell whenever it gets cold, and it'd be great if you could lend me a hand with them? I'd pay, obviously."

Although he hesitated for a moment, Graham took the opportunity he'd been given - aside from a bit of mummery over pretending to understand how plumbing worked (and how he was going to fix the issue), it took only a few moments' spellcasting to repair the pipework on the house once the grocer had gone off for work, and he found himself a couple of hundred pounds better off for the job.

Of course, Graham had no idea that he'd quoted a price vastly under that of a proper plumber, but nobody was any the wiser (although the grocer later remarked to a friend how strange it was that the pipes now worked better than they ever had since she'd installed them), and he'd found a source of work which took hardly any time and gave him enough to live off; he pinned his phone number and rates to the noticeboard by the village church, and got enough work to easily pull in a few hundred a week with hardly any effort.

The whole affair had him thinking, though - why was there such a thing as a competent poor wizard? The ministry didn't really have the ability to control magical-muggle interaction beyond blatant infractions of the Statute, and yet so many wizards lived humble existences within the confines of the wizarding world. If they were careful with their acting, there was an essentially endless supply of work and money to a wizard with a dab hand at household charms. In fact, Graham thought, was there anything preventing a wizard from flipping houses - buying them cheap and decrepit, doing them up, and selling them on? It was practically a recipe to print money. He filed that thought away for later - that was an endeavour which would require rather more time than he had available while the war was still on.

* * *

Although Graham's life had settled into a comfortable rhythym, he was proving a rare exception to the increasingly dire state of the wizarding world by the Spring of 1981. Minchum had been forced out of office after one failed response too many from the aurors had left five dead and another thirteen injured on the steps of Gringotts; his successor, Millicent Bagnold, appeared to be a relatively effective leader, but she had all the charisma of a paper bag and did little to assuage the fears of the public; half the shops in Diagon Alley had closed their shutters, and the goblins were threatening to do the same if effective action was not carried out against the Dark Lord.

The Order of the Phoenix were faring little better, Remus remarked to Graham as he held his arm out for inspection after a recent skirmish.

"It's just a question of numbers." He griped, wincing at the buzz of the diagnostic spell as it travelled down his arm. "We've plenty of excellent duelists, and Merlin knows we're all working as hard as we possibly can be - but there are far more on Voldemort's side, and they don't mind going for killshots, either, while we're constantly stuck on the defensive."

"You mean the Order isn't trying to hunt Death Eaters down?" Graham asked in surprise.

"No - we've been strictly retaliatory for months, now. Dumbledore doesn't want us to go on the offensive - he's waiting for something, and I have no idea what it is - but I hope it comes soon, or half of us won't be around to see it. Do I need any treatment that you can see?"

He smiled, a little bitterly, when Graham shook his head. "Good to see that this damned affliction is good for something, at least. Is there anything you need before I head off? What's your ingredient stock looking like?"

"I'm doing alright on that front," Graham replied, "but I do have a small request, for Lily and James, actually. Do you think you could deliver this to them?" He rummaged through the desk at the side of his makeshift ward (actually a spare bedroom in the cottage he lived in) for a few moments, before he finally found the envelope he was looking for - Remus, though, was shaking his head.

"I don't actually know where James and Lily are." He griped. "Whatever they're up to - I mean, besides childraising - is so secret that only Dumbledore and Sirius have any access to them directly. Do you want me to pass it onto one of them instead?"

"That'd be brilliant," said Graham, "I just wanted to see if I could get my hands on the portkey liicense they must have applied for when they were putting on their wedding. It's much easier to renew one than to apply for one, or I wouldn't ask."

Remus nodded, and gathered his belongings. For a moment, as he stood to leave, he seemed far older than his twenty-one years, and Graham felt a rush of sympathy.

"Stay safe, okay?" You're pretty tough, but you're not made of steel, Remus."

And, with a tired smile and a shrug, the other wizard was gone.

* * *

As Spring turned to Summer, the dire straits which the Order found itself in only became deeper and more perilous. Graham had urged Jessica and David to take the opportunity to travel that summer (once they'd struggled through their end-of-year exams) on the basis that their future medical careers wouldn't give them the time for such travels; he'd begged off their invitation to join them due to his own medical work, and so they'd set off for Asia for a couple of months in the sun .

Graham, on the other hand, found himself even more isolated than before. Remus had told him that he was going undercover in June, and he hadn't heard from him in the two months following then; Sirius could barely muster the energy to stand when the two of them crossed paths, let alone socialise, and most of the Order fared no better.

For all that he had been avoiding conflict, though, Graham's caution was not infallible, and his luck finally ran out late in October that year.

"Alright, Frank - I'm going to start hitting your leg - not too hard, I promise. If you feel pain, I want you to say 'Aargh' for me, alright?"

Graham grinned at his patient as he rapped the side of Frank Longbottom's knee; some weeks ago, he and his wife had been working a case for the aurors when he'd fallen prey to a particularly brutal trap that had practically separated his leg from his torso; although Mungo's had reattached the limb, the nerves were taking a little longer to sort their act out.

"Okay, nothing on that side? That's very good news!" Graham beamed; Frank's recovery had been exceptionally swift, considering how brutal his injury had been. "Now we'll try the other - sorry, what's that noise?"

A low whining noise had started as he spoke, and was quickly ascending in both pitch and volume. Frank's eyes widened in horror.

"It's the wards!" He leapt to his feet, siezing his wand, as his wife burst into the room.

"Oh Merlin, Frank - there's already an anti-apparition ward around the house - I think this might be it, just like Dumbledore said - at least Neville's with your mother."

She turned to Graham, who had blanched in horror, and smiled weakly at him.

"You poor sod," she said, "I know that you never wanted to fight. We've only got a few seconds till the wards fall - just be brave, alright? If we can hold out long enough, the Order can make it to us, and we'll all be fine."

Frank drew his wife into an embrace, and she kissed him on the cheek, lingeringly; then Alice directed the three of them into a defensive formation, and Graham said a private prayer to a God he wasn't convinced by as the wards reached a tortured scream, and shattered into nothing.

* * *

They were not all fine.

* * *

Graham remembered less about the details of the fight, in the days after, than he remembered the sounds and sensations of it. True to Sirius' advice, he'd done his best to be surprising; he'd coated the floor under the death eaters' feet with conjured industrial lubricant, had swarmed them with conjured insects, and even deflected a few spells back at their attackers with carefully angled shields; Alice and Frank were making a sterling attempt at fighting off four opponents at once, and - for a glorious moment - Graham had even thought they had a chance of holding out until the order arrived.

But all the finesse in the world hadn't stopped him from being hit by the Cruciatus curse, and at that point the conscious world dissolved into a haze of memory. From an academic standpoint, he'd wondered what "the most painful sensation imaginable" actually meant; but no descriptor could do justice to the feeling of every nerve in your body activating their pain receptors, all at once. It was being burnt and frozen and pinched and bruised and cut, all in the same moment, everywhere on the body. Graham was distantly aware that Frank and Alice were being put under the same curse by whomever the spellcaster was, once it was taken off him; but the world had become shapes and colours by that point, and he remembered nothing more than the screams and the laughter blurring together until he could hardly tell the difference between them; then, blessedly, he knew no more.

* * *

Graham awoke three days later, which was a pleasant surprise for somebody who hadn't expected to awaken at all, and found himself in a hospital ward which he blearily recognised from a previous tour as the Janus Thickey ward for spell damage. The ward was dimly lit and sparsely attended - far away, Graham thought, he could hear the sound of - celebration?

Wincing, he sat up, frustrated at the stiffness of the motion, and reached out for his wand - only to stop and stare at the jittering of his hand. Academically, he knew that the shaking was symptomatic of those who underwent the Cruciatus curse, and would fade with the passage of time; practically, it was a damned nuisance.

Graham stumbled his way across to the ward's entrance, and the celebration he thought he'd heard grew louder as he approached.

"Ah, you're up and about, mister Longshaw!"

Graham whirled around to see an avuncular healer smiling beningly at him, and the motion almost knocked him off his feet - he was quickly steadied as the healer - Wrigley, his nametag informed Graham - caught him by the arm.

"Easy now - you've been through quite the ordeal, young man. The cruciatus isn't something you just walk off, you know!" He burbled happily.

The man's perpetual cheer was infuriating to Graham, and he couldn't help but snap at him: "what about Alice and Frank? Are they alright?"

Wrigley's face fell, and he sighed. "Well, it's quite a delicate situation, you have to understand - the Cruciatus curse isn't like a normal spell, you see, it -"

"Look - I trained for two bloody years to be a healer - I know what the Cruciatus does. Are. They. Alright?" Graham ground out - and, taken aback, the healer gave a supplicatory smile, and led him through to a closed off section of the ward, revealing Alice and Frank on a pair of hospital beds. Alice stirred weakly as they approached.

"G-graham?" She asked, trying to push herself upright, but the healer rushed to calm her, and used a gentle sleeping spell to put her to rest.

"It'll be a long road to recovery for her, but we'll be able to repair the worst of what was done in the end, mark my words." Wrigley cast his eyes across to Frank, who lay entirely still in his own bed, and sighed. "Mister Longbottom, on the other hand - we just don't know. Certainly, we've never seen nerve damage on this scale, and I'm afraid he may simply be trapped inside his own head, unable to get his body to function at all; we just can't know yet."

Locked in syndrome, Graham thought - an incredibly cruel fate for anybody, but particularly someone as dedicated and brave as Frank was.

On healer's orders, Graham reluctantly returned to his own bed - he could be discharged on the next day, he was told, but for now he was under strict orders to get some rest.

"Oh, Healer Wrigley?" He asked, as the wizard turned to begin his rounds again, "Why exactly is there such a ruckus downstairs?"

To Graham's surprise, Wrigley beamed at him, and hurried off, before returning with a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Of course!" He said, handing the paper over. "You were out for three days - you haven't had a chance to hear the news!"

Graham cast his eyes down, and managed to take in the headlines:

DARK LORD FALLS AS HARRY POTTER SURVIVES KILLING CURSE, AVENGES PARENTS

And, further down:

SIRIUS BLACK ARRESTED AFTER KILLING THIRTEEN AND BETRAYING POTTERS

And, just like that, the bottom fell out of Graham's world.

* * *

 **AN:** Thank you so much for reading! Apologies for the frankly ludicrous gap between this installment and the previous one are owed, so thank you for your patience in coming back to this some months later! Apologies for the slight rush of this chapter - I decided that progressing the plot would be a decent plan, and had a lot of ground to cover.

A slight butterfly effect is in effect in this chapter, as well; Graham's presence reduced Alice's time under the Cruciatus (he was a distinctly secondary target to the others). Details of the attack on the Longbottoms are surprisingly scarce; if there is some canon I'm missing, though, I'm truly slightly sorry.

In the future, I hope I can update this story on a three-week basis; it's one of two I'm working on right now, so two is a little enthusiastic, but hopefully I can keep it under a monthly update. As always, reviews and critique highly appreciated - getting a review really makes my day, so if you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it!


	8. An extraordinary rendition

**Chapter 8: An extraordinary rendition of extraordinary rendition**

Graham was allowed to leave St. Mungo's the following morning, in defiance of the protests of the healer on duty at the time that he was in no fit state to travel, and certainly no state to use magic for the time being.

Reluctantly, Graham had to admit that there was some truth to this diagnosis; he could tell that apparition was off the books, and walking was more problematic than he'd have liked. But he had far too much to do for that to stop him from painfully making his way to the Ministry.

He had cried, in the quiet of the ward, for the loss of his friends, and for Sirius' betrayal. If the Death Eaters knew what he'd been planning, the consequences would be beyond catastrophic - for him, and for the hundreds of children he might have sentenced to death. He had to know why Sirius had done what he did, and how much he'd told his master about what Graham had been up to.

Graham had only had recourse to visit the ministry on two previous occasions; his application for an apparition license, and the time he had collected the official transcript of his NEWTs. Luckily, though, the public entrance had not changed, and he found the old phone-box in Whitehall without too much difficulty.

"Thank you for visiting the Ministry of Magic." A tinny voice came from the handset. "Please state your name and reason for visiting."

Graham thought for a moment. "Graham Longshaw - Finding out whether a bastard sold me down the river, I guess?"

With a clunk, a badge rolled into the change slot; picking it up, he snorted at the text (Graham Longshaw - Aquatic Affairs) and affixed it to his jumper, as the telephone box dispensed him into the main atrium.

* * *

The frustrating reluctance of the ministry to deal with his request was no less than Graham had expected. He spent fifteen minutes (better than last time, he thought) waiting at the lobby for someone to let him go up to the Aurors' reception; another hour passed in their dingy waiting-room while he waited for a receptionist to appear at their desk. Things only got worse, once frustration had bested his caution and he'd gone around the reception's counter to bang on the break-room door.

"The department can't give information about ongoing cases, and that's the end of that." The dumpy witch who'd refused to serve him insisted, after five painful minutes of dispute. "Doesn't matter why, doesn't matter who you are."

That, Graham thought sourly, was a particularly galling lie. One of the biggest gripes that Remus had had in the war was the fact that it was so easy for the Orders' opponents to get out on bail, or to be excused their crimes on the basis of the Imperius curse - he had, on one particularly bitter occasion, complained that the holding cell doors hardly stopped swinging, so easily were the friends of Death Eaters getting them out on bail.

Luckily for Graham, fortune was on his side; he happened to recognise one of the aurors hurrying out of the bullpen that was the department's interior. Although he hadn't known Amelia Bones particularly well (She was six years older than him), the Hufflepuff prefect had always had a reputation for scrupulous fairness while they'd been at Hogwarts together.

"Miss Bones!" he said, turning away from the receptionist, who scowled at his back. "Can I have a quick word?"

The witch in question turned to him with a look of slight confusion; after a moment, recognition dawned. "…Longshaw? What are you doing here?" she asked.

Sending a silent prayer of thanks, Graham strode over to her. "I really, really need to talk to an auror. Do you have a minute? We could walk-and-talk, if that worked for you."

Although she still seemed faintly confused to see him, she nodded nevertheless. "Walk with me. As you can probably tell, it's not exactly a quiet day for anyone."

Graham followed her to the elevator, and they stood by the door.

"With the ridiculous celebrations going on across the country? I can imagine." He said.

Graham had seen the articles about what wizards had been getting up to in the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat; but he had more pressing concerns.

"Sorry to be abrupt, Ma'am - but I'm here to ask about Sirius Black."

"Black?!" She bit out the word more harshly than she'd intended to. "What on earth would you want with him, beyond his head on a spike?" Graham was briefly reminded of Sirius' attempt to proposition her, some months before - clearly, Black was something of a sore spot for her.

His reasons were, of course, the delicate issue for Graham, so he lied as best he could. "I was working in… well, against You-Know-Who, and one of the results of that was that Black knew where my family - muggles, to be clear - were living. I have to know whether they need to relocate, and as quickly as possible - please, please tell me you can at least get a message to him." He couldn't prevent the quaver in his voice as he spoke; the story wasn't real, but the emotion certainly was.

Amelia hissed. "That's… unfortunate. I'm sorry to hear about that - but it doesn't change the fact that it'd be nigh on impossible to get you into contact with him. You don't have the influence - or the heritage, I'm sorry to say - to secure that privilege."

Graham's face fell (although he was hardly surprised that being a muggleborn would make something else harder in the magical world), but Amelia hadn't finished.

"I, on the other hand, would fare a little better. Shall we take a trip down to the holding cells?"

Graham thanked her profusely as they took the lift down to the second basement level of the ministry - strange, he thought, that an underground building could have a basement - and through to the holding cells. For all that the ministry had been lax with the release of their prisoners, the corridor itself was thrumming with magic - this, at least, was one area where they'd put some proper thought into their wards.

Amelia left him at the entrance, and walked down to the end of the corridor, where she had a quiet word with the auror on duty. To Graham's surprise, the conversation went on for some time, and Amelia became increasingly agitated; finally, she span around and stalked back down to rejoin him, looking rather troubled.

"I'm not sure how this happened," she said, beckoning Graham to follow her back to the elevators, "but Black - isn't here. Hasn't been here, even; apparently he's already in Azkaban."

" _What_?" Graham hadn't heard of anyone being remanded to Azkaban without trial, but to think that he of the Most Noble and Ancient Blacks would have been simply made no sense at all.

"I'm as confused as you are." Amelia said, as they stepped into the lift, "but I'm going to follow up on whatever's happening here - something's very strange about all of this."

Privately, Graham agreed with her. For Sirius to have betrayed the Order was strange enough; but it made no sense whatsoever for him to have helped Graham the way he had, not only in terms of his generosity, but also the simple fact that the muggleborn register had remained in Graham's possession for the whole of the war.

"There is one advantage of Black being in Azkaban, though." Amelia said, looking sidelong at Graham. "There's an actual visitors' policy that doesn't exclude anybody, there - if you want, I can get you the forms to apply for a visit yourself? Not today, mind you. I know about you and the Longbottoms, and I'm surprised you're even up and about; but you're definitely in no position to be around Dementors, at least for the moment."

* * *

From London, it would have been a seven hour train journey back to Devon, and Graham had no inclination to risk his life on the knight bus to speed the journey. So instead, he found himself on the train to Oxford, later that afternoon. He'd only had enough money for the slow train, so he sat on his uncomfortable seat and stared out at the suburbs as they began to fade into the green belt. It was a Saturday, so with any luck Jessica and David would be off duty for the day; Graham had no idea how to get in touch with Remus, and he really needed to not be alone for a while.

The train ground through Reading, and was held for ten minutes at Didcot; by the time Graham stepped onto the platform at Oxford, the sun had almost set, and Graham felt ready to collapse. He almost picked up a copy of the Evening Standard at the station, if only to enjoy the bafflement that the non-magical media was displaying about the slightly embarrassing exuberance that the magical world was displaying; but he was struggling to walk, let alone manage the concentration to read, so he made his way - painfully - to his old flat, instead, where - mercifully - he found that his friends were home.

"You-Know-Who's actually dead?" Jessica asked, wide-eyed; besides her, David - who'd taken to reading back-issues of the prophet, which Graham had taken to dropping off whenever he visit - was equally surprised.

Graham had thought it best to start off with the good news. "Well, nobody seems to know how it happened, exactly, but... yes. That's the positive side of things, anyway."

Jessica and David's smiles faded at that; they hadn't asked why he was in the condition he was, but neither of them were blind.

"Something happened to you as well, mate - didn't it? Don't tell me you were there when he was offed?" David asked, brown eyes wide with worry.

"No, it wasn't that." Graham sighed, heavily. "You know how I've been doing house calls for the Order? Well, a few days ago, I was at the Longbottoms' place - you remember Alice and Frank, from school?"

Jessica nodded. "They've just had a kid, right? Wait, you're not saying that -"

"Well, he wasn't at home that night, but yeah, I am. There was an attack while I was there, and - well, Frank got the worst of it, and they're saying he might never wake up from his coma. Alice was hit pretty badly as well, but - all three of us were put under the Cruciatus curse for a pretty long time, and I was out until last night."

Jessica let out a horrified gasp, and rushed to hug Graham. David took a little longer to catch on to the unfamiliar term, but he gave a groan of realisation a few moments later.

"I think we could all use something to drink, but you in particular, mate - I've heard enough about that bastard of a spell from you before." David said, and hurried over to the kitchen cabinet.

"Jess, you're literally crushing me like a grape." Graham griped, and his friend drew away from him, blushing.

"There's more, though." He continued, quietly. "However Voldemort died, he was trying to kill the Potters, again; and - and he managed. James and Lily died, Jess - and then Harry somehow bounced the killing curse back at Voldemort, or something, I have no idea. Nobody does, really."

He looked up at Jessica, tears shining in his eyes, to meet her own shocked expression; both of them seemed to have run out of words. David had been quietly listening as he poured drinks, and he rejoined the two of them, handing them both a tumbler of whisky.

"I know I'm an outsider to all of this, to say the least." He said, taking a seat across from them, "but I did get to meet James and Lily, if not the others - and I know they'd want us to be commemorating, not commiserating. Let's make a toast to their memory, okay? And to everyone who fought in the bloody war - you included, mate. We're both so bloody proud of you."

* * *

Graham woke up the next day on his friends' sofa, horribly hungover but somehow still feeling better than he had the night before. They'd stayed up until the early hours of the morning, drinking and talking, and that alone had been incredibly cathartic.

It was still quite early, and the others hadn't woken, so he made himself a cup of coffee and started to struggle through the administrative nightmare that was the application to visit Azkaban. Five pages into it, he was joined by Jessica, who helped herself to some coffee, before perching on the table, and frowning down as she read through the first page of the document Graham was filling out.

"Is it really worth going back to Lockwood, now?" She asked, softly. "There's no way he won't have told someone about what you've been up to. Why don't I apparate us both down to Devon later? We can get a moving van, take everything you want, and you can come back up to Oxford for a while, perhaps."

Graham smiled at her, a little wearily. "I - I know that if he really did what he did, then there's not a chance in hell he didn't tell. But it just doesn't make sense, you know? Why would he give me the bloody house, not to mention the register, instead of just stealing it?"

He frowned, and took a sip of coffee.

"I mean, he definitely had the chance to get rid of me," he continued, "there was a time when he led a death eater to my house last year - he said he was running away. But if he'd wanted to, he could easily have got rid of me then, pretended it was the death eater that did it, and kept his cover story in the order up to scratch. It doesn't make a lick of sense, and the whole thing's eating away at me."

They sat there in silence for a few moments, as Jessica watched him worriedly.

"Well," she said at last, "at least promise me you're going to practice the Patronus before you go to Azkaban? I can't bear the thought of you in that place."

Graham promised, a little sheepishly, before moving the topic onto how Jessica and David were doing (well, it transpired, although they were planning on holding off on the wedding front until university stresses died down a little); he knew that he'd need to face the stresses of the magical world sooner rather than later, but a few hours of thinking about something - anything - else was something he sorely needed.

It was not without a degree of trepidation that Graham apparated back to Lockwood, later that day. He'd hardly expected a contingent of Death Eaters to have been waiting on his doorstep - but the place held none of the tranquility he'd found there in the year before the end of the war.

Luckily, though, the house seemed as resolutely untouched as ever, and Graham warily busied himself in the office he'd made for himself in the old living room of the groundskeeper's cottage. Aside from the issue of Black, he desperately needed to start warding the manor; he wanted to track down Remus, wherever he might have been (if he was still alive, Graham thought morbidly); and he was more than a little curious about what, exactly, had happened to Harry Potter, who - the papers had claimed - was to be raised away from the public eye according to the wishes of his parents.

Of those issues, the only one Graham felt he could muster a practical response to was the wards; he'd need Amelia to give him the go-ahead on his visitors' permit to Azkaban before he could do anything on that front, and he hadn't the faintest idea about the others. So he busied himself in the book on warding which Black had passed onto him along with the portkey license some months previously with Lily's regards; he realised, with a fresh frisson of guilt, that it had been the last time he'd had any communication with the Potters whatsoever before their deaths.

It was late in the evening before Graham looked up from his work; he'd only had cups of tea made with stale milk that afternoon, but he couldn't find it in himself to bother going out to get a proper meal. He would have carried on working into the night, but his focus was interrupted by the arrival of a barn owl at his window; surprised to see it, he took the message, and let it go on its way. Opening it up, he was surprised to find that it was from Amelia Bones, who had clearly not let the issue of the missing prisoners lie fallow.

Unsurprisingly, the note was short and to the point:

 _All Death Eaters in captivity (inc. Lestrange, Carrows et al) remanded to Azkaban without trial, work of Crouch/Bagnold after fall of You-know-who. Aurors not pleased this went over our heads; will follow up, but in meantime have cleared visit to Azkaban tomorrow evening; good luck. Best, Amelia._

Graham went through a kaleidoscope of emotions at the thought of Death Eaters being sent to Azkaban without trial; a moment of vicarious vindication at their punishment was quickly supplemented by unease at the concept of imprisonment without trial (under any circumstances), only for an uncomfortable understanding to dawn about why Crouch and Bagnold had done such a thing. For most of the war, the tacit understanding - on both sides - was that the ministry was hardly effective enough to convict well-connected death eaters (or, on the few occasions that the issue came up, members of the Order). By getting around normal procedure in the chaos of the war ending, the ministry would actually succeed in bagging some of the biggest threats to the post-war magical world.

None of this, of course, made Graham any more confident about visiting Azkaban. He had no idea what access he'd have to Sirius, and less about what he was going to say. But there wasn't much he could do but worry, and he'd had enough of worrying for a lifetime; so he worked through the night on engraving the wardstones he'd need to protect Lockwood, and was so tired that he slept through the the following afternoon once they were finished, leaving him with just a couple of hours to spare before he needed to present himself at the dock from which the ferry to Azkaban would depart.

* * *

"So, above all - do *not* approach the prisoners, and do *not* leave the conference rooms where you'll have your meeting. If you enter the prison proper, the dementors won't be able to distinguish between you and their wards, and at that point your idiocy will not be our concern. Any questions?"

The guard who was ferrying the paltry collection of visitors to Azkaban was not a particularly humorous man; then again, Graham thought, he didn't have a particularly humorous job. As the boat - an old fishing trawler, Graham fancied, or something similar - swept across the North Sea rather more quickly than it should strictly have been able to, he glanced sidelong at his fellow passengers, and resolved to carry on trying to not be noticed by them. Perhaps he should have expected a less-than-savoury crowd, given the population of Azkaban, but it was still hard to sit still when Desdemona Nott and Pamela Parkinson were perched on the bench opposite him, talking quietly, and the man on the seat next to him looked very much like Vincent Crabbe.

As far as Graham knew, none of the three recognised him, although Mrs. Nott had certainly cast an appraising gaze over him before seeming to lose interest; but he knew that Nott's and Parkinson's husbands had been among those apprehended and sent to Azkaban, and he was aware that the order had strongly suspected that Crabbe was a death eater. Although he refused to let it show on his face, the attack he'd failed to repulse still burned in his memory, and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, if bothering to visit Sirius was nothing more than plain idiocy.

Still, Graham thought, there was some small triumph to be found in the faces of his companions, for all three of them looked thoroughly miserable. Graham hadn't found much time for rejoicing, but, privately, he couldn't help but enjoy the schadenfreude of seeing such hateful figures looking so unhappy with their lot.

"Alright, we're just a couple of minutes out, now." The guard announced, abruptly. "If you've got a patronus, as discussed, you're welcome to use it once we've hit land, until you're in the building proper; after that, you'll need to dismiss it, so that you don't alarm the dementors."

Graham steeled himself, and gazed up at the sheer lines of the fortress as they drew closer. As they'd been told to expect, a cold began to steal over him, as the dementors' distant influence started to manifest. He hadn't expected the phantom pains of the cruciatus to reappear, though; he supposed that it made sense as another side-effect of dementors, but by the time they made landfall, he was itching to cast his patronus, if only in the vain hope that it'd do someting for the pain.

The walk up from the jetty was steep and slippery. To his surprise, Nott had actually been able to cast a patronus, though her compatriots were less successful; Graham did his best to let the excitement and joy of his plan suffuse him, and cast his own. To his immense relief, his spell went off without a hitch, and his sparrow patronus perched on his shoulder for the walk, soothing his nerves as well as lessening the pervasive ache that had set in.

Once they'd arrived at the guardhouse which was to be the site of their meetings, Graham was separated from the others, and led to a small room, bare beyond two chairs and a desk. In the corner, a guard slouched against the wall, a scowl embedded on his face; again, Graham reflected that, however cheerful they might be outside the prison, Azkaban was not exactly a positive working environment.

He was left there for almost half an hour, but - finally - a hunched figure was led into the room, and shoved down into the chair across from Graham.

For some reason, Graham found himself disappointed at the sight of the man who sat across from him. Sirius didn't seem to have acknowledged that he'd been moved, or that Graham was sitting across from him - some part of Graham, he realised, had been hoping for a maniacal laugh, screaming - something more than this blankness.

"Sirius," he began, quietly, "I need to talk to you, please."

There was no response.

"Sirius?"

Still nothing; a precious few minutes passed this way, and it felt increasingly clear to Graham that, whether it was Dementors or some sense of guilt, Sirius was hardly present at all. Finally, impatience conquered caution, and Graham turned to the guard; he'd only a fifteen minute time slot, and he couldn't let the time simply drift away.

"Do you mind if I cast a mild shocking spell? I'm not getting anything out of him like this."

A proper guard in a halfway decent prison would say no, Graham thought, but Azkaban wasn't the latter and wasn't staffed by the former, so he wasn't particularly surprised by the guard shrugging, and indicating that it was no skin off his back either way.

"Salebra Successum!" Graham incanted, and Sirius jerked as a spark leapt across the table and struck him in the chest. The spell wasn't exactly a shock; it simply stimulated the neurons in the brain, and conveyed a few minutes of hyperactivity upon the recipient; it was really meant to prevent people from going into shock, but it seemed to have done the trick for Sirius.

"Graham?" Sirius asked. "What are you - how are you here?"

The man seemed bewildered, but he'd already proved how skilled an actor he was, so Graham wasn't sure if this meant anything; he took a deep breath to calm himself before he replied.

"Sirius." He said, carefully. "Is it true? Did you kill Lily and James?"

The man's face crumpled, and he looked away, tears tracking down his cheeks.

"It's all my fault," he moaned, "my stupid godsdamned sodding fault they're dead. I never should have said - I never -"

He sniffled, piteously, and something snapped inside Graham; he slammed his hands against the table, and couldn't stop himself from shouting.

"They were your friends, you prick!" he yelled. "Your friends, and you sold them out to a murderer because you liked the idea of people like me being slaves to proper wizards like you - you killed them just as much as You-Know-Who did, Sirius, not to mention those poor muggles you probably don't think of as people at all."

He panted with the exertion of shouting, and drew back. He hadn't expected Sirius to burst into tears however - great, wracking sobs of anguish. Sirius fought through it though, and composed himself enough to speak.

"It wasn't betrayal," he said, eyes cast downwards, "it was idiocy - and that bastard, Peter. I shouldn't - shouldn't have told them to switch, shouldn't have trusted that rat, and now - oh, Merlin, Harry's on his own as well, and Peter could be anywhere -"

Graham had been confused before, but he felt only more confused now - none of this was making sense.

"I'm sorry - switched? And - Peter's dead, Sirius, because of you. Nothing but a thumb left, I heard - you're thorough, if nothing else."

A switch seemed to flick in Sirius as he heard this - all of a sudden, the wild-eyed man was gone, and the Sirius Graham thought he'd known was back.

"No, no, no, it's all gone wrong," he said, looking up at Graham, "And Harry needs me to be better than this."

There was silence, as Sirius stared intently at Graham, who felt as if he'd lost the ability to speak, all of a sudden; he felt almost trapped under the intensity of the other man's gaze.

"Graham, I'm guessing you're here because you're confused, right? Why would I give you a plot of land, break into the ministry, and all the rest, when I'm a spy for Him?"

Graham nodded, hesitantly, and Sirius ploughed on.

"Listen. James and Lily were put under a spell called the fidelius charm - it's old magic, but the principle is that you can keep a place a secret, and only the person chosen as secret-keeper can reveal it. It's how they were hiding from You-Know-Who for the past year; remember how you couldn't apparate to them?"

Sirius took another breath; but his newly acquired sense of purpose didn't desert him.

"James and Lily got Dumbledore to cast the spell, but he couldn't cast it and be the secret-keeper - so they thought they'd ask me. And that's what we told people - I was the one guarding the Potters' location."

Graham was reminded of Remus' slightly bitter claim, a few months earliier, that only Sirius and Dumbledore had access to the Potters - he nodded, again.

"Okay, good." Sirius sighed. "The thing is - it was bollocks. We put it about that I was their secret-keeper so that we'd distract attention from Peter, who was the real one - we figured nobody would suspect him, and we were right. And then - and then, on Halloween…"

Graham frowned. "So you're saying that Peter was the one that betrayed the Potters, and you hunted him down afterwards?" He said. "So you're only guilty of killing thirteen people, not fifteen?"

"No!" Sirius burst out. "After I'd heard about James and Lily, I rushed to theirs, and found Harry there; and then Hagrid arrived, so I passed Harry on to him, and went to track Peter down. You can check it with him - I swear, it's true. I found Peter, but he got me with something when I confronted him - some kind of confundus, I think - and blew up the place himself. He's an animagus - a rat - it would have been the work of a moment to disappear."

His speech seemed to drain him of whatever energy had possessed him a few minutes before, and Sirius sagged back into his seat. By the wall, the guard, who'd not been moved in the slightest by this claim of innocence, held up two fingers to indicate that their time was running out.

Graham hadn't really been able to process the information, but he found that he desparately wanted to believe Sirius' claim. It would solve so much of his confusion, and - more importantly - if true, would give him something to salvage out of the misery that was the end of the war.

"Sirius," he said, intently, "I want to believe you - Merlin knows, I do. But I need you to give me something - whatever you can think of - that'll let me verify this, and bring it to Amelia Bones. She was the one who got me in here, and she's the best chance I'll have of getting you an actual trial, you know."

The two of them sat in silence, as Sirius thought for a minute that seemed to drag on far longer. Finally - the guard held up a finger, indicating how close they were to the end of their time - he spoke up.

"Remus can tell you that Peter was a rat animagus, prove that bit of what I'm saying true." he began. "And if you check my wand, you shouldn't find the kind of spell on it that'd do what Peter did - so you'll need to track that down at the Ministry. Dumbledore can tell you about the Fidelius, too, if that's anything, and Peter's thumb I remember he cut off with a knife, so it shouldn't look… exploded? It's circumstantial, but it's a start."

Graham had scribbled these points down on the pad he'd brought along while Sirius spoke, and he nodded, slowly.

"Well, I can only say how much I hope you're right." He said, standing up. "If you are - stay strong, Sirius. One way or another, I'm going to do my best to find out."

Sirius smiled weakly at him, as the guard who'd pulled him into the room re-entered it and ordered him to his feet.

"Thank you won't go far enough, Graham." he said,as manacles were slapped onto his wrists. "But - more than all of that, please track down Harry, okay? Even if I'm stuck in here, I need him to be alright. I - I swear that -" but the guard had dragged him into the corridor, and he was gone, leaving Graham with far too many questions and none of the answers he was hoping to find on his visit.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! I can't say how much the fantastic response to the last chapter has meant to me - every time I see that I've received another review makes my day, but thank you in particular to those of you who left detailed replies and critiques, because they're especially lovely to receive.

Apologies, by the way, for breaking my prediction about posting dates immediately after writing it; I'm just enjoying the fact that the muse is back for this story, hence my early publication of the next chapter. I'm actually on something of a roll, so I'll be posting the chapter after this next week; I suppose I'm pulling off something of a NaNoWriNope, starting this late, but it's better than nothing. My goal is to publish a chapter a day, leading up to Christmas - for now, though, watch this space.

As you can probably tell from this chapter, things aren't going to be as simple for Graham as popping down to the wizengamot and getting a flask of veritaserum; some actual work's going to have to be put into all of this, and more of that in the future. For now, though, thank you again for reading, and all best in whatever you're up to!


	9. A Sobering Discovery

**Chapter 9: A Sobering Discovery**

When he awoke the next day, Graham couldn't help but feel daunted by the scale of what he needed to do. He'd taken a potion of dreamless sleep to reset his circadian rhythm, but he still had no idea where to begin his work, unless -

Gripped by a sudden thought, he scribbled a quick note, summoned his money-pouch (a rather paltry amount) and went to dig through his old trunk; finally, he found his broom, shrank it, and put it into his trouser pocket, before apparating to Diagon Alley to see a man about an owl.

"Delivery to the UK, package under 20 grams." The woman at the counter droned, looking up at Graham, who nodded.

"Slow delivery can take up to two days, would-you-be-interested-in-one-of-our-" Graham recognised the sales pitch, and cut the evidently uninterested saleswoman off from finishing.

"No, slow is fine. And it's three sickles, yes?"

The woman rolled her eyes, but nodded; Graham paid her, headed through to the back-room of Eyelops' Owl Delivery Services, and took care to select a particularly ruffled-looking bird, who hopped onto his proffered arm. He carried the owl outside, then retrieved his broom and the note he'd written, mounted the first, and attached the second to the owl's leg.

Remus had specifically asked Graham not to contact him when he'd gone undercover; but Graham imagined that the end of the war would probably have meant an end to that policy. Besides, he was more than a little concerned about Remus, who must surely have been feeling the hurt of Sirius' betrayal and his friends' deaths far more keenly than Graham; so he was exceedingly glad that the owl duly set off on its way when he gave it the letter, and Graham made to follow its slow progress across the country.

Graham was a competent enough flier, but by no means was he a keen one, so it was with a considerable degree of relief that he approached his destination a few hours later, in a forest clearing by a building that would charitably have been described as a cabin but was really more of a hut. He hovered some distance above the treeline, disillusioned, and waited to see what became of the owl, which was tapping patiently at the hut's window; he still wasn't sure, after all, what company Remus had chosen to keep.

Fortunately, luck was on his side, and it was an incredibly worn Remus who emerged from the hut a few moments later, and squinted at the note he retrieved from the owl. Graham had, in terms vague enough that Remus wouldn't be implicated if another read it, intimated that he was on his way, and that Remus should signal if it was alright for him to approach - and, sure enough, the man looked up, and, cautiously, called his name. Cancelling his disillusionment, Graham called to note his arrival, and spiralled down to join Remus in the clearing.

Up close, Remus looked even worse than he had from afar. He hadn't shaved in some time, his clothes looked as if they'd been worn for days, if not weeks, and his unfocused eyes betrayed the fact that he'd been drinking enough to intoxicate a werewolf.

"Mind if I cast a sobering charm, Remus?" Graham asked carefully; at Remus' uncaring shrug, he cast the spell, and Remus staggered as the spell took away the numbing effects of the alcohol; his eyes widened, and he turned away, retching, and threw up.

Graham conjured a glass and charmed it full of water, and handed it to Remus; he watched sympathetically as Remus used it to swill his mouth out, drained it, refilled it, and drank another.

Finally, the werewolf seemed to reattain some semblance of stability, and he glared venomously at Graham.

"What in the everliving _shite_ is worth putting me through that for?" He hissed. "I've already had the best week of my life; three of my friends are dead because the fourth sold them out to You-Know-Who; do tell me why a fifth decided that this was a good idea."

"Remus - I can't begin to imagine how the last few days must have been for you," Graham began, "but - at the risk of reintroducing hope to the equation - there's more than a slight chance that Sirius is innocent, that he didn't - do what people said he did. Could I come inside and explain properly?"

Lupin was, to put it mildly, unconvinced by the story Sirius had passed on to Graham.

"That's insane." He said, flatly. "Sirius wasn't lying; Peter is - was - a rat animagus, it's true. But the rest - well, it just boggles belief."

He paused for a moment, looking down at his mug; he might have been in mourning, but he was still British enough to have made them both tea.

"On the other hand - swapping secret keepers would be the exact sort of damn fool thing Sirius would suggest, if the fidelius thing is actually accurate. If we could check that with Dumbledore, and it turned out to be true, the rest might at least warrant investigation."

"So you'll help me?" Graham asked, hopefully; he really hadn't known what state Remus would be in, and the prospect of his assistance was far from unwelcome.

"I'll help myself, I think you mean." Remus said wryly. "I think you probably underestimate just how badly I want for all of this to be true, whether or not it actually is. If it does turn out to be a dead end, though, I - well, I don't know what I'll do with myself, I really don't."

Graham patted his arm, reassuringly; there was very little he felt he could say to that. The two of them finished their tea in silence, each lost in his own thoughts; it was Remus who rose to his feet first.

"Well, there are a few hours left in the day, and I don't want Sirius rotting in Azkaban if the bastard turns out to be innocent; fancy a trip to Hogwarts?" He asked, smiling faintly; Graham agreed to this plan, gathered his belongings, and the two of them apparated away.

* * *

Hogwarts was rather more northerly than Remus' abode had been, and the sun had already set by the time that Graham and Remus had trudged up to the castle's main gates. In the distance, the castle lights glittered, and Graham felt a sudden pang of intense nostalgia. He wasn't sure exactly how they were meant to alert the staff of their arrival, but Remus seemed to have had an idea, and was speaking quietly to one of the gargoyles at the gate; after a minute, he turned to Graham, looking satisfied by whatever he'd heard.

"They'll send someone down to fetch us, apparently - it should just be a couple of minutes."

The two of them stood and waited in silence; there wasn't much either felt able to say. After a few minutes, just as the statue had promised, a short figure hurried down the pathway, and beamed up at the two of them.

"Misters Lupin and Longshaw!" Said Professor Flitwick, beaming. "I wasn't aware that the two of you knew each other. Do come through - it's wonderful to see you both."

Flitwick, as always, proved to be emotionally perceptive, and commiserated with Lupin as they walked back to the castle; but he didn't press the topic too heavily, and steered the conversation on to the mundanities of school life, sharing tidbits about the goings-on at Hogwarts.

Graham could probably have sleepwalked his way through the corridors - just like most Hogwarts graduates - but Flitwick nevertheless guided the two of them up to Dumbledore's office and spoke the necessary password, before bidding them farewell and leaving them to climb the spiral staircase that had revealed itself.

"Come in, both of you!"

The voice had invited them in before either man had knocked, but this was very much a Dumbledore thing, so neither Graham nor Lupin were particularly phased. More surprising to Graham was how *tired* Dumbledore seemed - aside from his usual veil of cheeriness, the world seemed to be weighing heavily on his shoulders.

"Now," Dumbledore said, gesturing for the two of them to take a seat, "what could prompt an erstwhile healer and a particularly brave member of the Order to seek me out so urgently?"

To his credit, Dumbledore showed very little surprise at Graham's account of Sirius' pleas, and thought for a moment before replying.

"Well, I can at least confirm one part of that narrative - I was indeed the fidelius' caster, at the Potters' request. I did not, indeed, get told at any point who the secret keeper was; we had briefly discussed the available candidates, but the final decision was kept from me - the fewer people know the secret, the stronger it tends to be, you see." He gazed at nothing for a moment, before turning his attention back to his guests. "I'm afraid I can be no more definitive than that, but the matter certainly merits investigation; if you wish, I shall write you a letter of recommendation to take to the aurors, if that would be of any assistance."

"I - yes, Headmaster, that'd be an incredible help." Graham said, relief stealing over him.

"I do have another question, however." The older wizard continued. "What led you to visit Azkaban at all, Mr. Longshaw? I don't seem to recall you interacting much with Mr. Black, or, for that matter, Mr. Lupin, while you were at Hogwarts."

Graham found himself unexpectedly tongue-tied. "Ah, well - I, I suppose we hit it off in the war - I'd got back in touch with Lily to talk about some spells, and then Sirius was a go-between when she went into hiding, and I met Remus a little after that. The thing is, he knows where my family are - I'd mentioned it a few times - and I need to know if they're in danger now."

Dumbledore watched him carefully, but accepted his answer readily enough as he gave it, and moved the conversation on to more pleasant matters. After his guests had left, though, he sat for some time in thought. If Black was innocent, a great many things would change, largely for the better; but that was a question to consider as Lupin and Longshaw uncovered further information. The really intriguing moment had come when he'd asked Longshaw about his connection to Black; the man had clammed up with surprise and more than a little fear, and he didn't have to be the experienced legilimens he was to know that he'd lied about his reasons for investigating. What else, he wondered, was at stake here?

* * *

The sliver of hope which their investigations were giving him were doing a power of good for Remus' mood, and he even accepted Graham's offer to stay in the spare bedroom at Lockwood when it was given; the hut in the forest where Graham had found him had been the placed he'd gone for his transformations, he explained, but while he'd been working to infiltrate the werewolf clans, it had become his home, insofar as the hut could even count as a home.

"By the way," Graham mentioned, as they nursed a couple of beers down at the nearest pub that evening, "Whether or not Sirius turns out to be innocent, he did make one request we should fulfil either way; making sure that Harry's alright."

"Well, Dumbledore told us that he'd placed him somewhere safe, so I'm sure he's not too badly off - but I do agree. That much I owe to James and Lily, at least." Remus drained his glass, and set it down on the counter with a clatter. "do you think we could head back in a bit, actually? My last... change was three days ago, and I'm still not really feeling over it, what with everything that's happened."

Graham happily went along with this, and they headed back for an early night; Dumbledore's promised introductory note had asked that they be allowed visit the aurors the following morning, so the pair of them pitched up bright and early the next day. Graham took a special pleasure in telling the witch who'd fobbed him off that they had an appointment, and she grumpily went off to fetch the auror who'd been assigned to supervise their inquiry.

"Ah, Lupin, Longshaw - glad to see you both."

To Graham's pleasant surprise, Amelia Bones was the auror who accompanied them down to the evidence storage rooms; it was, she explained, the sort of job that was normally fobbed off to an unwilling volunteer, but she'd noticed the names on the request when she'd seen it.

"I'm as interested in all of this as you are, now." she said, leading them through the dingy maze of corridors that were the back rooms of the aurors' department. "I'm rather curious to see what evidence we actually collected on the scene of the crime that day."

The first stop they made was to search through a vast cabinet of confiscated wands, an experience Graham actually found rather sad; whatever their owners had been doing, it felt almost cruel to have deprived so many wands of their owners. Happily, they quickly found Sirius' wand, and Amelia passed it over to Graham.

"Do you know how to check its spell-casting history?" She asked, waiting for his nod before continuing. "Normally, there should be a list of the wand's last twenty or so spells, but I don't see one here. More sloppy work; not impressive at all. If you want, you can check it yourself; I need to go further in to find whatever else we have."

She left the two of them in the corridor; Remus withdrew a notepad, and indicated that Graham should cast his spell.

"Priori Incantatem Locavit." He murmured, and, with a shudder, Sirius' voice began to play, in a near-monotone - the effect was so unnerving that Remus almost forgot to start writing the spells down on his notepad.

"Stupefy, petrificus totalus, expelliarmus, stupefy, apparition, apparition, apparition, unspecified transformation, aguamenti, nox, lumos, apparition..."

The voice carried on, unheeded, and Remus met Graham's gaze, ashen-faced.

"Those are the spells he cast, in reverse order - the first one was the last, et cetera. And they said the aurors found him right after the explosion - he wouldn't have had the time to cover up with those other spells." He said; Graham finished his thought for him.

"And none of those would be able to cause an explosion like the one at the site, would they?"

Carefully, Graham ended the spell, and placed the wand back in its drawer, as Amelia bustled back towards them, now carrying a small box. Graham hadn't seen her look properly angry before, and he took a step back without realising it.

"Whoever worked on this," Amelia said, unceremoniously thrusting the box at the two of them, "is worse than an idiot; incompetence alone doesn't explain this, even if we didn't know that Pettigrew was an animagus. His thumb is in there - have a look, and tell me what you see."

With some trepidation, Remus opened the box, and the pair of them gazed at the thumb for a moment, until realisation dawned.

"It's a clean cut," breathed Remus, "and an explosion couldn't possibly have been so neat."

"The wand's no better." Graham said, grimly. "Not a single spell on there could have caused an explosion like the one on that street - directly or indirectly."

Remus passed her his notebook; she glanced through it, and her face settled into an expression of curt resolve.

"I'm going to take this all to Moody, paranoid bugger that he is." Amelia said; she grabbed Sirius' wand, slammed the drawer shut, and began stalking back towards the offices, beckoning the others to follow.

Although he knew that Alastor Moody had been active in the Order, Graham hadn't been called upon by him to provide medical treatment while he'd been working with them; unsurprisingly, he didn't trust anybody else to provide him with potions or apply spells to him, and so the man had remained something of an enigma. Happily, though, his reputation for paranoia had him on board about as quickly as they explained the situation to him.

"Good thing you got back to me on this," he growled, as he paced around his office, "I smell a rat, figuratively and literally. I'll head to Azkaban tonight; if Sirius is so innocent, he won't mind taking a dose of veritaserum to substantiate his story."

There was little else for Remus and Graham to do after that, especially since Amelia had politely brushed them out of the aurors' department, promising that she'd keep them updated on any further developments.

* * *

Lacking anything else to do, Graham picked Remus' brain for anything he could recall on the topic of where Harry was; Dumbledore had been tight-mouthed on the issue in the press, and had given no further information to the pair of them.

"Well, their parents have all passed away, and James was an only child," Remus mused; "of Harry's closer family, he's got Sirius, who would be his second cousin, I think, and the Tonkses, that's Andromeda (formerly Black) and Edward - I think they're something approaching cousins once removed?" He paused for a moment, then snorted. "Oh, and there are the Malfoys, who are something on the same track, but I think we can safely discard them. Otherwise… well, Lily had a sister as well, I believe?"

"Alright; so that's the Tonkses we can check in with, and -" Graham's eyes narrowed in recollection - "hang on, I think I've actually *met* Lily's muggle sister and her husband; she was at Lily's wedding, and I gave her a bit of medical assistance. Um… Petunia, her name was, Petunia and Vernon. I think I even remember their address - Privet… something or other."

"Well, that's two things we can be doing!" Lupin said brightly. "Honestly, the stress of waiting to hear about Sirius will do me in if I can't do _something_ ; can we get to work right now?"

Graham wasn't sure if there was some kind of yellow pages for the magical world, but the brute-force approach functioned almost as effectively in lieu of it.

"Tonks Residence." He threw a handful of floo powder into the grate at the leaky cauldron, and groaned when this, too, didn't work; he'd tried seven different combinations of the name, now, and none of them had connected him to the Tonkses.

Over by the bar, Tom the barkeep was watching with some amusement. Finally, as he reached for his tenth attempt, depositing another few knuts into the pot by the floo powder, he relented, chuckling, and asked if Graham was perhaps trying to connect to the "Ancient and Noble House of Tonks". Remus burst out laughing when he heard the name, but Graham didn't quite understand the joke; in any case, though, he duly recited the name, threw the floo powder into the fire, and thrust his head through.

"Hello?" Graham called, finding himself in a small, though comfortably appointed, living room. "Is anyone at home?"

Nobody answered for a few seconds, but a girl of eight or nine finally came careening through the doors, almost tripped over her dress, and just about regained her balance before falling into the fireplace.

"Who're you?" she asked, curiously; Graham noticed that her hair had flashed white when she was tripping, before resetting to the pink it had been before, and wondered if she was a metamorphmagus - he'd never seen one before, only read about the theory.

"I'm an acquaintance of your parents." He said, cheerfully (a technical truth - he had vague recollections of both Andromeda and Ted having been in their final year when he'd started out at Hogwarts). "Do you think you could fetch one of them for me?"

The girl shrugged, and sauntered out of the room (watching her feet very carefully, Graham noticed) and yelled for her mum; a few moments later, a rather graceful woman, came into the living room, tugging off a pair of gardeners' gloves.

"Oh, hello." She said, eyeing him curiously. "It's - Longshaw, isn't it?"

"Good memory!" he said. "Um - do you mind if Remus Lupin and I could come through to talk for a bit? Only, we've some rather important news about your cousin, Sirius."

Andromeda's gaze sharpened and her lips thinned, as all emotion drained from her face.

"Well." she said. "By all means, come through; this should be most interesting." She gestured at the fireplace, and Graham saw the flames turn green around him, indicating that travel was possible - so he yanked his head out, beckoned Remus, and walked into the flames.

"Well, interesting doesn't really cover it; it's rather more than that." Andromeda remarked, some time later. "And certainly it'd be a good thing for us if Sirius were to take up the mantle of the head of the Black family in the future. But - why are you telling me this? It's not as if either of you know me, and these are just allegations at the moment, hardly proven fact."

She looked at the pair of them, shrewdly; Graham was suddenly reminded of the fact that she'd been a Slytherin at Hogwarts.

"Why exactly where you interested enough in us that you'd come up with a reason to visit?" Andromeda concluded, watching with some amusement as Graham blushed and Remus squirmed with embarassment, before deciding that honesty was probably for the best.

"It's actually about Harry Potter." Remus said; Andromeda's eyes widened in surprise. "I want to know where he is and to make sure that he's alright. I owe that much to his parents; they were some of my closest friends."

Graham shrugged. "On my part, Sirius asked me to make sure that Harry was alright when I visited him - criminal or not, it's a request I don't mind fulfilling. I'm guessing this means you're not looking after him?"

Andromeda frowned. "Why would we - oh, I suppose we're some of his closest relatives? Apart from the Malfoys and my… other sister, I don't actually know if he has any other magical ones, come to think of it - but I never knew the Potters that well, I'm sorry to say. Sirius was always rather wary of me, just as much as he was of Narcissa and Bellatrix, and I suppose that carried over to James."

"Well, I hope that Sirius will reconsider that policy if he does turn out to be innocent - thank you for being so helpful, Andromeda." Remus said, rising to his feet. "I think we ought to be on our way, as we've a couple of leads to follow on Lily's side of the family - but it was lovely to meet you."

They exchanged pleasantries, and Andromeda escorted them outside the wards so that they could apparate. Before they went, though, Graham had one question.

"I wouldn't normally ask, but the curiosity's eating at me." He said. "Is Nymphadora a metamorphmagus? Only, I studied to be a healer, before the muggleborn changes came into effect, and I've never actually seen one before."

Andromeda looked at him, curiously. "Is that the case? Well, she certainly is - reminding her not to fiddle with her hair certainly adds a frisson of excitement to visiting the muggle world, I can tell you that much! Ted's a healer as well, as a matter of fact - though he's not currently practicing, of course. We're lobbying the ministry, but I expect it'll be some time before we make any progress on that front: of course, I doubt we'd make any progress at all without the work of young Mr. Potter!"

* * *

Finding Petunia and Vernon was, unsurprisingly, rather a nuisance. An owl addressed to Harry Potter merely circled in the air a few times, looking confused, before returning to them; Dumbledore had probably - sensibly - warded the place he was staying against magical location in case any of the Dark Lord's followers decided to seek their revenge.

Instead, Graham and Remus bought a copy of the AA Road Map on the basis that there could only be so many Privets in Britain. They were right, in that there were ten listed by the book, all over England. Graham only remembered the distinctly suburban flavour of the place, so they began with the ones which were near cities; but once they'd discovered the right Privet (Drive, as it turned out) they were faced with a second issue.

"…I don't believe it." Remus muttered. "And muggles actually want to build their houses like this?"

Graham chuckled. "Well, I think they want to build houses quickly and cheaply, and to know exactly what they're getting. I'm not saying I disagree, mind you!"

They walked from door to door, trying to look for any identifying marker, until Graham lost his patience, and knocked on the next one he came to - a minute later, an small, slightly shrewish woman answered him.

"Hello?" She said, scowling; "Are you here to sell me something? Because we're not interested."

Graham smiled, though it was a rather fixed smile; his family had found door-to-door salespeople just as frustrating.

"No, no, not at all!" He said. "For some reason I thought that this was Petunia's house - we've come down to visit, but I clearly put the wrong door-number down!"

The woman's expression lightened up. "Oh, you're looking for the Dursleys?" She said. "Well, you're close enough - they're at number 12, over the street." She indicated the house in question, and they thanked her for her time.

"Remus," Graham said, as they crossed the road, "I think it might be for the best if I visit the Dursleys on my own. They really didn't seem to be fond of magic, though it was just after they'd been injured by spellcasting back at Lily's wedding; I fixed them up, which I hope would put me in their good books."

Remus shrugged. "Well, if you think so; I've not actually met the Dursleys, but I've not heard particularly complimentary things being said about them. I'll wait on the bench over there, then; but if Harry is there, I want to see him, okay?"

They parted ways, and Graham went to knock on the door; a few moments later, a harried-looking woman answered it, cradling a child with her other hand.

"Yes?" She said, then, eyes widening with recognition - "it's you!"

"It's me." Graham agreed. "Would you mind if I came in? Only, I have some rather important questions about the Potters..."

Petunia had not changed very much since he'd seen her last, except that her face had acquired a network of worry lines in the interim. She led him through to the living room, where her son was messing around with wooden blocks on the floor; another child, though, was sleeping fitfully in a cradle, and - Graham's breath caught in his throat - there, on his forehead, was the scar that the papers had described with such excitement.

Petunia gestured him to sit in an armchair; resting her other child - a daughter, it seemed - in a second cradle, she perched on the sofa opposite him.

"He just - arrived, one night." She said, softly. "With nothing but a letter, and the blanket that man had left him in - he was freezing cold the next morning, when we found him there."

"You mean - Dumbledore just left him on your doorstep - he didn't explain anything?" Graham sputtered. Whatever he'd been expecting to find at the Dursleys', it wasn't this.

Petunia nodded, grimly. "Well - the letter explained things, a little. It said that my sister was dead - lovely to find out second-hand, of course - and that Harry needed to stay with us because of something to do with his mother, some kind of… protection." She wrinkled her nose at the last word; clearly, magic had regained none of its appeal since the wedding.

"That's, well, rather ridiculous." Graham managed. "I've been trying to find out what happened to Harry since the night Lily and James died - the papers have no idea, which is probably a good thing, given the way some of those treat mu- non magical people."

"Well, I certainly don't want wizards at my doorstep," Petunia sniffed, "but, well - I mean, Lily's my sister, and of course I wouldn't want her child to go to an orphanage, but three children is simply -"

Petunia paused, and Graham noticed just how tired the woman looked; with three young children to care for, she couldn't have been getting much sleep, if any.

"The thing is, we just don't earn enough for three children!" She continued, frustrated. "Vernon understands - of course he does - but things are already tight with Vernon earning to feed four mouths, and with Harry on top of that, the sums just don't add up. I mean, in a few years, once the children are at school, I could go back to work - but how we'll get to then, I just don't know - not to mention the fact that we simply don't have the space for three children in one house!"

Graham made a sympathetic noise. "I really do understand, Petunia - though I can't quite believe that Dumbledore would just abandon the child to your care. Look - I actually brought an acquaintance with me, who's waiting at the end of the road. Do you think I could fetch him, and bring him in? I have some potentially good news for you, you see."

By the time Graham had brought Remus in, Petunia had made tea for the three of them; she explained the story to Remus, who was no less surprised than Graham had been, and more than a little upset.

"I can't believe they'd just - leave him there!" He burst out. "What if something had found him in the night, or -" he trailed off, looking bewildered.

"We're both glad that he's alright, and in such good hands." Graham continued. "But I really do understand how stressful it must have been for you. The thing is - well. I didn't actually know Lily and James that well, in the end, and Remus - well, he's got a recurrent disease that incapacitates him often enough that he couldn't care for a small child alone."

"Not that I got asked, either way." Remus interjected, bitterly. "But - well. We don't know for sure, not yet, but Sirius Black - another of James' friends - was put in prison right as the war ended, and we suspect that it was for a crime he didn't commit. If he's set free, then there's a good chance he'd want to - and be able to - take Harry off your hands and raise him himself."

Petunia gasped. "I don't want to say I don't want the boy - I mean, I'm certainly not a fan of wizards, but it's not his fault he was born that way! But -"

"We understand, Petunia." Graham reassured her. "But I should warn you - we don't know if our suspicions are correct, yet - and if they are, there'll be rather a lot of red tape to go through before we can come and look after Harry."

It was then that Vernon arrived home, and a half-hour was spent with him, retreading the same territory as before, as Petunia left to feed the children. She had been worried about keeping Harry; he proved rather more blunt.

"It's not a question of whether we want to; we're not going to be able to." He said, looking rather embarrased. "We weren't expecting to have our Dahlia - she was a surprise, in fact - but looking after her and Dudley, well, we were already starting to cut corners. We're still paying the mortgage on this place; even if we downsized, we wouldn't have the room, and we would still need to make rent."

Graham nodded, understandingly. "I do understand, Vernon. And I think that Sirius - if he's let off - will be more than happy to take Harry in, though it'll take some time. There aren't any immediate alternatives - certainly I wouldn't qualify for adoption, and Remus, well, wouldn't be able to look after Harry."

Remus agreed, looking frustrated.

"Believe me," he said, "there's nothing I'd like more than to take in Harry as my own. But I don't have the capability, what with my illness; I'm afraid it'll be at least a few months before we can really offer any help. Unless -" he turned to Graham, consideringly. "You've been working on that place for a while, now. How are your household spells?"

Graham laughed in surprise.

"Now there's an idea!" He turned to Vernon. "How would you like it if we could cut down on your bills, and give you a little more space, in the meantime? I'm guessing you don't want much magic in your life, but we could probably do a few things to make your lives easier, while we're here."

* * *

Although he was clearly very wary, Vernon was certainly not one to turn down offers of free home improvement, when they came; Graham and Remus explained the same to Petunia, who was similarly on board, so they went about with their changes.

The first of these was the work of Remus, who offered to give the Dursleys a hand on the food front.

"If you have anything that won't go off in a hurry," he explained, "I can enchant it so that it never actually empties, at least not for quite a long time - a month or so, even, if you're not trying to empty it non-stop. Wizards can't create food, for some reason - but we can make more of it. I can come and put a new one of these on every month, if you like!"

Duly, he enchanted the salt, some flour, baby-powder and moisturiser, at Petunia's request, a few jams, and some sugar ("Well, I suppose I'll be baking a lot more!" Petunia said, tittering nervously) while Graham muttered words at the inlet pipe which connected to the sink; a few moments later, he let out a bark of triumph.

"Yes! Just like my place, though your plumbing's more complicated." He twisted back to face the still-nervous Dursleys, and explained. "I've basically done the same thing as Remus, but more permanently, because water is for some strange reason easier than food for magic to handle. Basically, whatever water comes into your house is multiplied about ten times over, so you'll use ten times less from the grid - it should cut your bills down to nearly nothing."

"Well, that's a few hundred quid a year right there." Vernon was doing his best to smile along at this, but the use of magic certainly wasn't making the man relax.

Their piece de resistance, however, required a bit of teamwork between Graham and Remus - the former of whom didn't have the ease of transformation, while the latter lacked the experience in charms, to carry off their masterstroke alone. Using the blank bit of wall behind the staircase, Remus moulded a cavity from the wall, just a foot or so in depth, before going to find a piece of wood in the garden; meanwhile, Graham scribbled runes into the cavity with a permanent marker a nervous Vernon had lent him, before retreating to the comfort of the lounge with his wife.

Finally, half an hour later - just after Remus had lugged his newly-transformed door into the corridor - Graham was ready, and, with a tap of his wand, the cavity quivered, and smoothly expanded downwards in a series of steps. Graham was very proud of this - getting expansion charms to do more than a simple box expansion was an enormous pain, and very few wizards went to the trouble of doing more than just 'bigger' with their spells. Remus eyed his spellwork approvingly, before getting him to step aside, and charming the door into the wall - and, with that, they were finished.

"Petunia, Vernon!" Graham called.

A few moments later, the pair emerged; Vernon, Graham couldn't help but notice, was moving far more easily after he'd shed some of the weight his thyroids had been piling on him.

"I'm rather proud of this, to be honest." Graham said, indicating the door behind him. "We've managed to build you a basement!"

Remus pulled open the door, and led them inside, and down the steps - lighting his wand on the way. The basement was by no means enormous - it was perhaps the size of the first floor, although Graham fancied that he could have made it larger if he'd wanted - but Vernon and Petunia couldn't help their gasps of surprise, nevertheless.

"This is -" Petunia couldn't finish her sentence, and simply stared for a moment. "You're saying Lily could have done this sort of thing?"

Graham snorted. "Lily invented the spell that I used for this - with her mind, I bet she could have put a ballroom in here with space to spare!"

Vernon, unsurprisingly, was more cautious. "So… this is all safe?" He said.

Remus nodded. "Well, it's foolproof for at least the next century, but in theory, the spell doesn't have a sell-by date." He said. "I won't bore you with the details, but in any case, if it starts to fail, it'll just start shrinking very slowly; you'd have months to move things out of here once you noticed."

"Now," Graham continued, "You'll notice that the carpet and the wallpaper are the same as they are up by the doorway - that's because I extended from those materials. If you want to replace them, you can do that; you'll also need to extend cabling down here manually, because magic and electricity do not react particularly well, as a rule. Does this all make sense?"

Petunia snorted. "Well, it doesn't make sense; I mean, it's magic. But it is - well, it'll make things easier, at least; if… he isn't found innocent, though, will you come and tell us? We've savings for the time being, and Harry isn't that expensive to look after, either - but we'll have to make plans of one sort or another, if things don't change."

* * *

All the home improvement in the world couldn't make the Dursleys comfortable with magic, and it was already quite late in the evening, so Graham and Remus made their excuses, and apparated back to the Leaky Cauldron to get some dinner. Harry's situation had left them both with decidedly mixed feelings.

"Well, he's safe." Graham said, swallowing a bite of sheperd's pie, "and he's out of the public eye. Neither of those things are bad, exactly."

"On the other hand, he's not exactly going to be happy, is he?" Remus countered. "The Dursleys are going to struggle, cheaper bills or no, and they just don't really want him. That's not a good upbringing for any child, is it?"

"Yeah, I know." Graham looked up at the floating candles which illuminated the Cauldron, and let out a surprised chuckle. "You know, a few years ago? I'd given up on this place; I told myself that magic didn't want me, so I could do without magic. I'm glad I was wrong; I really am. It's strange to think that You-Know-Who's actually dead."

"It's stranger," Remus replied, "to think that we met the person who did it today, and he can't change his own underwear. Think he deserves a toast?"

"That, and more." Graham said. "To Harry Potter!"

* * *

AN: Thanks again for reading! As you can see, a couple of earlier changes are manifesting now. I'm choosing to write the Dursleys rather sympathetically, but at root, they're still quite unsympathetic people who see in Graham and Remus a chance to get rid of a child they can't care for.

As always, reviews are a privilege and a pleasure to receive. Thank you for reading.


	10. Tribulations and Trials

**Chapter 10: Tribulations and Trials**

For a couple of days, life returned to something approaching normality for Graham. He and Remus had agreed that they wouldn't mention their knowledge of Harry's location to Dumbledore, at least for the time being - he'd been reluctant to tell them where the boy was, and neither wizard was comfortable updating him until they knew why.

Remus had left to investigate his parents' old property - his mother, Hope, had died in the late stages of the war, but he'd already been undercover and hadn't had the chance to look at the property's condition; even if it transpired that Sirius was found guilty, he confided in Graham, he still hoped that Remus would at least be able to take Harry on holidays from the Dursleys'.

Graham had returned to work on his wardstones, a task he interrupted only by his frustration at how much more he should have concentrated on runes. The best defence that Lockwood could have was not being known by wizards, which was why he so desperately hoped that Sirius was as innocent as he claimed. Beyond that, an unplottable charm, anti-apparition ward, and a shield he could toggle on or off, he hoped, would suffice for the most part as Lockwood's defences.

The real pain had been getting a muggle-repelling ward to encircle the property, leaving the house itself accessible to the muggles who found themselves on the inside of that ward. Parent-teacher meetings would, after all, be a nightmare if the parents kept on trying to leave, Graham reasoned; but, after two days of work, he was ready to activate the ward. He couldn't help a minor twinge of tetchiness and melancholy as he checked his scribbles one last time for any errors; Lily, he knew, would probably have managed the arrangement he'd come up with in a few elegant runic sentences, in comparison with his clumsy paragraphs. But his own arrangement worked well enough, and finally, as the wards flickered to life he felt at least a little more secure in the place he'd come to think of as home.

Beyond that, though, Graham found himself struggling with the concept of free time. Amelia was telling him very little, having politely informed him that the matter concerned Aurors directly, and therefore she wouldn't be able to update him on the case until his further testimony or input was required. He practiced creating portkeys, having renewed the Potters' license in his name some months before, until he felt confident enough in their application that further practice would be useless; he carried on practicing the spells for combat, though his progress on that front felt as slow as ever; and he visited Alice and Frank at St. Mungo's, although she had been asleep when he'd gone, and he'd shown no improvement on his condition. The days dragged into a week, and still, he heard nothing; finally though, on the ninth of November, news came in the form of Remus sprinting up to Lockwood from the apparition point outside it to hammer on Graham's door.

"Remus - what's up?" Graham asked, bemusedly.

Instead of answering, Remus, panting heavily, thrust a copy of the Daily Prophet into Graham's hand; its headline provided all the context either of them needed.

BLACK TO GO FREE? TRIAL TO TAKE PLACE TODAY, the headline screamed, before adding, in a smaller font, QUESTIONS RAISED OVER JUDICIAL INTEGRITY. And further down on the front page: MINISTRY IN CHAOS AS BAGNOLD FACES CALLS TO RESIGN. It was one of those days when it seemed that the editor was upset that he only had a single front page.

They were both, for a very long moment, lost for words. Graham, for a hysterical moment, wondered if he was the first person in history to collapse a government by accident; then he regained his senses, and skimmed the front page as quickly as he could.

Remus, though, hadn't the patience for this, now that he'd regained his breath. "You can read it at the ministry - Sirius' trial is going to start in an hour, and it's a public gallery. If we don't leave _right now_ , we won't have a chance in hell of being able to see it."

Graham nodded, and reached for a glove from the shelf by the front door, and waved it at Remus, who grasped it as well; then, with a tap of his wand and a quiet "Portus." The two of them were whisked away to the Ministry.

* * *

The Prophet, for once, hadn't resorted to hyperbole in its description of the situation at the Ministry of Magic. Graham couldn't remember when he'd last seen as many people in the atrium as they found before them on their arrival - the noise was practically deafening. Besides him, Remus frowned.

"Well, I don't think we're going to make it into the trial, do you?" He said, frustrated. "We're both outside London, so the Prophet takes longer to get to us in the morning - I suppose the early recipients could get here before of us without much trouble; how very irritating."

Graham had to agree with him; the two of them stood there for a moment, trying to weigh up whether it was worth at least trying to make it into the courtroom (Number 7, the newspaper claimed); but, happily, fate chose that moment to intervene.

"Ah, excellent." A sharp voice came from behind the two of them, causing them both to jump in shock. "I'd sent out owls, but I suppose you thought to come here before you actually received them?"

It was Amelia Bones, wearing her full ceremonial robe; she looked, if it was possible, even more serious than usual.

"Well, neither of us got an owl - were you giving us advance warning of the trial?" Graham asked; but Amelia shook her head.

"No." She replied. "I was summoning you, because it's possible that we'll need your testimonies in the course of this trial, although I'll be much happier if we don't; your heritage could complicate matters, and we want this to be as simple and clearcut as possible, Merlin willing."

She quirked an eyebrow at them. "I assume this is something you're both alright with?"

"Absolutely!" "Of course." The two of them said, simultaneously.

"Excellent. I mean, you don't technically have a choice, but I'm glad you're not opposed. The trial starts in half an hour; could you use the time to get some proper robes on? I don't know if you can tell, but it's going to be quite the occasion…"

Twenty minutes later, Remus and Graham, one hurried change of clothes later, found themselves in a small gallery, looking down on the cross-section of the wizarding world on display below; the courtroom was quite similar to an operating theatre, and they were in its top row. Sirius, for all his Ancient and Noble heritage, wasn't exactly the reason, Graham guessed; it was far more the case that people sensed political heads might be rolling, and wanted to see who was on the chopping block.

Aside from the Wizengamot, all of whom were wearing their ceremonial garb (plum robes with a mortarboard cap, making it very difficult to distinguish its members from above), Graham spied the minister herself (looking exhausted, and more than slightly fraught) talking to a couple of black-clad officials he didn't recognise; elsewhere, he could make out the ever-distinctive shape of Dumbledore, who had chosen to wear a particularly ghastly combination of paisley and magenta to the proceedings, and the auror contingent, scattered through the hall; clearly they were prepared for trouble.

Not for the first time, Graham was struck by a very strange combination of feelings; a certain amount of respect for the pageantry of the whole affair, combined with a degree of derision for the whole thing. Among the muggles, fifty-thousand people or so might be represented by an MP, a handful of local councillors, and such minor dignitaries - it was only for Parliament itself that any real amount of ceremony took place, and they were serving a population of fifty million. That wizards put up such pomp and circumstance when there were about ten thousand of them in the country felt, well, a little bit pathetic.

Remus nudged Graham in the side, putting him off his train of thought.

"Do you see the lady down there, in the grey?" He remarked. "That'll be Lucretia Pilliwickle - she's the current head of the MLE's legal team; a bit of a battleaxe, I've heard, but I don't think she had any fondness for You-Know-Who. This is probably good news, I'd say."

Presently, the Wizengamot assumed their stations, and - with a deafening blast of sound conjured from his wand - Dumbledore called the extraordinary meeting to order.

"Friends, esteemed colleagues." He began. "As you are all of course aware, we are convened here on a most serious matter; namely, the trial - or lack thereof - of one Sirius Black."

He waited for some time for the whispers to die down; it was one thing to read it in the prophet, and another entirely to have it verified in the courtroom.

"Of course, the question of how Mr. Black did not receive a trial is a very serious one - but, perhaps one better suited to discussion after his trial, as - if he is found to be guilty - the controversy as it pertains to him would be quite immaterial."

"Point of order!" A sharp voice rang out from the upper reaches of the Wizengamot, and a young man rose from his seat.

Dumbledore looked genially up to meet the gaze of his challenger. "Ah, Mr. Malfoy! Please proceed."

"Chief Warlock; the proof against Sirius Black seems incontrovertible; trial or no trial, the outcome seems hardly likely to change. I'd like to call a motion to expedite him back to Azkaban, in order that we can proceed with the more serious issue of breaches to our judicial code."

Judging by the appreciative murmuring of the other members, this was a well-received notion, and a few wands shot up preemptively; Dumbledore, however, raised his hands, placatingly.

"Friends - while, under normal circumstances, I would indeed aver from unduly taking the time of this august gathering with such a clear-cut case, in the time since his incarceration, the Aurors have made a series of investigations which merit discussion. Ms. Pilliwickle?"

The woman Remus had pointed out earlier stood from her chair at the foot of the courtroom, and turned to face the Wizengamot and public gallery.

"Over the past few days," she began, "the Aurors have employed a taskforce under the command of Alastor Moody in order to investigate the events leading up to Black's incarceration. They will shortly lay their facts before you; but these facts can generally be summarised as follows: Sirius Black was not responsible for betraying the Potters, Peter Pettigrew is alive and at large, and -"

Whatever else she had intended to say was drowned out by a roar of disbelief, rising both from the crowd and the Wizengamot. The minister had shot to her feet, and was whispering furiously to one of her aides; the aurors in the crowd were struggling to push them back as more people tried to force themselves into the courtroom. But Graham couldn't help but watch the man who had raised the question earlier - he hadn't seen Malfoy before, but he knew him very well as one of those Remus had so bitterly railed against while the war wore on.

Unlike those around him, Malfoy had turned to converse intently with a few men clustered near him. They did not look particularly surprised at the bombshell that had just been dropped; instead, they simply seemed frustrated by the pronouncement.

Oh, of course. Graham thought, glumly. They worked for You-Know-Who - of course they'd know that Sirius was innocent, and want him to stay in Azkaban.

It was only another series of blasts from Dumbledore's wand that restored the chamber to a semblance of order; finally, Pilliwickle was able to continue.

"Ahem. As I was saying, we also believe that Pettigrew was responsible for the explosion on the street that day, and the thirteen resultant deaths." She continued. "We will lay out our evidence before the wizengamot; then, Black will be brought into the courtroom to submit to veritaserum testing for a second time."

Order was restored a little more easily after this second announcement, and Amelia Bones was allowed to lay out her testimony in something approaching peace. Not for the first time, Graham was struck by the air of authority she commanded, even as a relatively junior auror.

Quickly enough, the chips began to fall into place. Dumbledore explained the fidelius charm, and his limited role in knowing the identity of the secret keeper; a photo of Pettigrew's thumb was used to demonstrate the impossibility of it having been blown off; Sirius' wand was examined, and the possility of his having a second one discarded.

The tension in the courtroom was tangible by the point that Sirius, still clasped in chains, was brought into the courtroom some minutes later. It was explained that he had been under careful monitoring to ensure that he had had no opportunity to ingest the antidote to Veritaserum in the time leading up to the trial; after some tedious disputes over the veracity of the potion ("The same tired stuff gets trotted out every time," Remus muttered to Graham, "a whole spiel about how it can't be trusted, and so on. Total crap, but it's all to keep the law where it is now - so that nobody has to consent to taking a truth serum, ergo Death Eaters can go free.")

Remus had controlled his emotions admirably through the trial, but the sight of Sirius had him gripping the bench they sat on so hard that it seemed that he would leave grooves in it. He had a strange expression on his face, Graham thought - something lodged between hope and fear. Sirius, on the other hand, looked a little better than he had done when Graham had talked to him; but he still looked rather haggard, and terribly nervous.

"As is standard," Pilliwickle announced, "Mr. Black will be asked a series of questions he has consented to answer before this trial. Auror Moody, if you would?"

The grizzled auror stepped forwards, and held up a bottle for the inspection of the wizengamot; carefully, he gestured for Sirius to open his mouth, and let three drops drip onto his tongue. Sirius' face went slack as the potion took effect, and Moody unrolled a series of questions.

"Are you Sirius Black, son of Walburga and Orion Black?"

"Yes, I am."

"Are you, or have you ever been, aligned with or a member of the death eaters?"

"No, I am not, and have never been."

At this, a susurrus of whispers broke out, but Moody pressed on as if they weren't there.

"Were you the Potters' secret keeper? And, if you were not, who was?"

"I was not their secret keeper; Peter Pettigrew was."

Murmurs were by now full blown conversations; Graham noticed that Malfoy had given up on the trial entirely and was discussing something with his neighbour, both of them looking furious.

"What transpired between you and Peter Pettigrew on November 1, 1981?"

"After discovering Lily's and James' deaths, I tracked his apparition signature, and found him in a muggle district. I was going to try and kill him, but he was quick off the mark; he disabled me with a confundus, cut his thumb off, and cast an explosion. He transformed into his animagus form -a rat - and escaped."

Remus turned to Graham, tears shining in his eyes, and grabbed him in a fierce embrace; but whatever he was trying to say was entirely drowned out. It was absolute chaos in the courtroom, once again; even Dumbledore was struggling to control it, though a barrage of silencing charms eventually did their job. It was not Dumbledore who spoke first, though - one of Malfoy's associates was quicker off the bat, and raised another point of order.

"Friends," he said, "it has been proven beyond doubt that Mr. Black is innocent of all he's been charged in. I propose an immediate motion to pardon him of all the aforementioned crimes?"

"…Granted." Dumbledore said, slowly; this he clearly had not expected. "Would all those in favour raise their wands?"

Unsurprisingly, the motion passed, unanimously; whatever his opponents might have thought, this was not a battle they were in a position to fight. Sirius was declared a free man, and escorted from the courtroom (several photographers fighting their way through the throng of spectators in pursuit), any questions of compensation having been delegated to a future session. Dumbledore then tried to call the meeting to order, but - to his surprise - was interrupted once more.

"Chief Warlock?" The man who had called a vote spoke up again. "I believe that, as the instigator of a successful vote, I may make a concluding speech?"

Dumbledore nodded, his face an apparent picture of geniality. "As you wish, Mister Yaxley."

The thickset wizard paused for a moment, then began to speak.

"My friends; we have remedied a great injustice today, and let an innocent man go free. But our work is not yet complete; for Sirius Black was not the only victim of the Minister's decision that justice be subordinated to the simplicity of immediate incarceration."

Graham felt a chill run down his spine; surely the man wouldn't -

"I propose two remedies to these ills." Yaxley said. "First, as is my right, I wish to call a vote of no confidence against Minister Bagnold. Instead of taking the death of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a chance for this nation to heal, she chose to use the opportunity to imprison fifteen innocent men and women on nothing more than political grounds - the fact that they were, by and large, purebloods who would oppose the regime of anti-pureblood reforms she has hinted at. As a corollary to this, I would also propose that we free the others who have suffered the same injustice as Mr. Black, with immediate effect. Innocents cannot be allowed to languish in Azkaban any longer."

Graham had realised where Yaxley had been going quite early in the man's speech; he was more interested to see Dumbledore's response. For all that he had his reservations about the man, Graham couldn't help but admire his chutzpah under pressure; the man hadn't shown an iota of the nerves he must have been feeling at the very real prospect of a terrible blow being struck by Voldemort's former followers. Instead, he merely nodded, graciously, and asked the minister how she would respond ahead of the vote for her removal.

Millicent Bagnold was a pleasant looking woman, but her mouth was set into a very thin line as she rose to address the Wizengamot.

"As many of you will be aware," she said, calmly, "in a state of war, the minister is bestowed with a series of special powers, in order that she may respond immediately to the various threats that a war naturally presents. In the past, this has been employed in a variety of ways; Minister Minchum, my predecessor, constructed a variety of back doors into the Ministry itself in order to furnish the Auror force with greater flexibility in the case of the Ministry falling to its enemies, for example. In my case, Bartemius Crouch and I passed a provision, strictly secret in nature, early in my tenure; a warrant which, in the event of the Dark Lord's death, would bestow limited powers on Ministry forces to apprehend and imprison his Lieutenants with immediate effect in Azkaban."

This did very little to prevent the mutinous whispering which had carried on through her speech; Bagnold, however, seemed unphased by this.

"Under these measures, it was not in fact illegal for the Ministry to have imprisoned Mr. Black, let alone the others we had apprehended immediately around the time of Voldemort's fall. Indeed, were it not for the strength of evidence that Alastor Moody presented me with, I would not have allowed his case to proceed to trial; and yet, in spite of the inevitable backlash I knew it would garner me, I allowed him to go ahead in the belief that an innocent man should not be allowed to suffer from the sins of others."

The hall had fallen silent.

"I do not believe that Sirius Black's innocence should motivate this body to vote to free, arbitrarily, those that were imprisoned alongside him; they should instead be looking to put them on trial, as it is evident that our net of arrests was cast too widely and too deep. If their sentences were unjust, they have nothing to fear in proving this before a court of law; if they were not, then they can be safely returned to their confinement in Azkaban, as opposed to being unleashed on a still-fragile wizarding public. Vote as you will on these proposals; but I implore you to vote with your minds, not your hearts."

Nobody dared to be the first to speak for some time. Finally, though, Dumbledore rose to his feet, meaningfully.

"On the proposal of immediate release of those incarcerated under the Minister's mandate; would all those in favour light their wands?"

Around a third of the room did so; a few stragglers looked ready to join them, but, sensing they would fall short of a majority, decided not to.

"On the proposal that all those incarcerated should undergo trials on the same basis as Sirius Black?"

This time, the room lit up; the motion was unanimous - or almost unanimous. Graham, once again, spotted Malfoy frowning, before he leaned over to his neighbour. Dumbledore was explaining the procedure for the vote of no confidence, which gave Graham a moment to think - then he realised just how clever Dumbledore's wording had been. The other prisoners were to have a trial, but strictly on the same basis as Sirius' trial - namely, with the application of veritaserum, and with a proper Auror-led inquiry. It certainly wasn't a foolproof way of obtaining convictions - but it was far better than it could have been.

"All those in favour of Minister Bagnold's resignation; please light your wands." Dumbledore said, carefully.

The courtroom watched, rapt, as wand after wand lit up. It was an extraordinarily close vote - Graham couldn't for the life of him count which side was ahead. Finally, though, Dumbledore called for any final votes, before casting a spell Graham didn't recognise to display a giant tally on the wall across from him: 53 in favour, 44 against, 3 abstaining. Beside him, Remus was working something out in his head.

"Well, that's the Minister done for, then." He murmured, a moment later. "Technically she's not out - they'd need a supermajority to have ousted her - but she won't be able to carry on with a majority of the Wizengamot in opposition. Barring something really drastic, she's pretty much a lame duck, now - I expect she won't last 'til Easter, if she even manages that."

With that final vote, Bagnold bowed shortly to the Wizengamot, and strode out, head held high; Dumbledore began to initiate the end of the Wizengamot's gathering, and before they knew it, Graham and Remus were outside once again, headed to the offices where Sirius had been sequestered from the media frenzy that had erupted around his innocence.

* * *

"Amelia, seriously – I could kiss you right now. Which is to say, could I kiss you right – no? Sorry, just high spirits, no offence meant. But I honestly could, let me tell you!"

Sirius, it transpired, was in an excellent mood. Amelia Bones, on the other hand, looked enormously exasperated; a trait, Graham thought, she shared with most uninterested women unlucky enough to attract the attention of Sirius Black. Finally, though, the pair of them noticed Graham and Remus, who had been ushered through to the office by Alastor Moody, who – twisted by curse damage though it was – had greeted them with a genuine smile.

"Remus! Graham!" Sirius cried, bounding over to them. "The handsome knights to my damsels in distress! This _is_ a happy day – I'm proposing thanks, drinking and merriment, possibly followed by more drinking, and more merriment if we're really lucky."

Remus laughed (he looked, Graham noticed, about ten years younger than he had when Graham had first found him after the war) and pulled his friend into a tight-gripped hug, before moving to hug Graham in turn.

"Sirius needs to go and talk to the media in a bit, I'm guessing – but do you want to break the good news about the little blighter?"

Graham hesitated, and glanced at Amelia Bones, meaningfully; the witch wasn't watching them, but she was certainly listening to their conversation. Remus shrugged, though, and Graham found himself agreeing – with Sirius freed, it didn't seem likely that the information they'd found out was particularly important to keep secret.

"Sirius – you'll be pleased to know that we did manage to track down Harry, though not without a lot of effort." Graham said, trying to ignore the hitch in Amelia's breath. "And he's absolutely safe – though I don't think he can really manage to stay where he is at the moment in any long-term sense. He's with Lily's muggle relatives -"

"Petunia?" Sirius cried, outraged. "Why the hell would he go there? She's a verifiable magic-hater, for Merlin's sake!"

"It's not that bad, Sirius." Remus consoled, patting his friend on the arm. "He's safe there, and the Dursleys have changed quite a bit – Harry's well looked after for now."

It wasn't much consolation to Sirius, but the man relaxed a little, at least. Any further conversation was cut off, however, as Moody poked his head through the office to announce that the media could no longer be reasonably curbed, and Sirius should go down and take the press conference they'd hurriedly whipped up for him in the atrium below. After he, Graham, and Remus agreed on a plan for the evening ("I'm telling you, mate – Soho is the place to be. Birds, bars, and booze – it has everything." Sirius said, excitedly), they parted ways, as Remus and Graham both made to leave so that they could prepare for the evening. As Graham was leaving, however, he was tugged aside by Amelia.

"I know that you let me hear it – I mean, I'm not an idiot." She began. "but – how on earth did the boy-who-lived end up with muggle relatives? It's no skin off my neck, one way or another, but I can't see the ministry putting him up with them, and the minister should have been given power of attorney over him, given that his parents didn't have close wizarding relatives when they died."

Graham frowned. "You mean the ministry gets to put orphans wherever it wants? I'm not sure I like that, to be honest. But – well, I don't really know. I only knew where Harry was out of pure luck – I just happened to know about Lily's sister, I mean. I mean, from everything I know, it can't have been anyone but -"

"- Dumbledore." Amelia finished his sentence, looking more than a little perturbed. "That's really quite strange. It's a bit out of my league, but you might want to investigate that – give Sirius a heads up, at least."

Graham assured her that he would, made his excuses, and headed off; but he couldn't help the by-now familiar feeling that he was becoming involved with things far more important than he'd ever intended to; he apparated back to Lockwood with a strange mixture of apprehension and excitement, and entirely failed to notice the speculative pair of eyes that watched him with some interest as he made his exit.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! I've cut this chapter off a little earlier than I'd like, just because the cut-off wouldn't work anywhere else – but, as you can probably see, Sirius' trial essentially represents a clear break from canon. I have seen a few people asking how closely this fiction intends to follow canon, and the answer is – not very much at all!

As always, reviews are both solicited and appreciated – they are a huge joy to receive, and a great privilege as well.


	11. Family matters

**Chapter 11: Family matters**

The hangover which Graham acquired in the wake of Sirius' celebrations was still haunting him him in the early hours of the afternoon on the day after. Remus had his lycanthropy to explain his inhuman capacity to process alcohol, Graham thought, but Sirius' tolerance was a mystery to him; for all he'd been drinking, the man must have had more alcohol than blood in his system by the time Graham had begged off the rest of the evening and made it home.

It might have been the hangover, or possibly just the comedown after the excitement of the days before him, but, gazing down at the unkept lawn from the room he'd taken to using for the medical work he'd done for the Order, Graham found himself trapped in something of a funk. He had decided on his crazy, stupid plan fully knowing that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had a real chance of carrying out their manifesto – he should have been happy that the man had been defeated. But he just felt tired, unmotivated, and dehydrated (although that, he thought, had more to do with the hangover).

The chiming of a magical alert, however, caught Graham by surprise, and he leapt to his feet to investigate its cause. He had expected that it was announcing a guest's arrival, but, to his pleasant surprise, he found that its source was in fact the trace register, which he'd hadn't thought about for quite some time. As before, Graham decided to indulge his slight voyeuristic urge to investigate this newest manifestation of magic, so he flipped through to the latest entry, only to double-take at what he saw.

"Seven new wizards?" He breathed, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

Hand trembling, he traced a finger down the page, taking a moment to read the names and ages. There was a five-year old boy, yes – but the rest of the entries recorded children who were younger than a year old, and he didn't recognise any of the surnames as magical ones -

"It worked." He said, starting to grin. "It must have bloody worked!"

His mind whirled at the implications, and he flopped into an armchair, feeling a little overwhelmed. He hadn't let himself doubt that his plan would come to fruition, but there had always been a seed of doubt for him. Maybe magic was endowed on its users in another way, he'd thought, or maybe the scheme Lily had devised had some flaw that the two of them hadn't anticipated. Graham had set out to change the wizarding world, and it looked like he would get his chance to do so sooner rather than later.

For all the excitement of his discovery, Graham shortly fell back into the melancholy which had troubled him earlier that day. The fundamental cause, he reflected, gazing glumly at the grey sky outside, was a lack of things to do. All the theories he'd set out, the possible ways of getting the magical world to accept this new wave of muggleborn students - well, none of that mattered until its execution.

He could start to talk to the parents of magical children whenever he wanted; but certainly he wouldn't need to for another year or two.

Fundamentally, he thought, he felt listless. The war hadn't been a good time, not exactly, but it had given him purpose that he now found himself lacking in its aftermath, now that he had the time to draw breath. He'd worked himself to the bone for the Order, had spent the end of the war on a knife-edge over whether everything he'd worked for had been betrayed to the enemy, and now -

"Even peace isn't good enough for me?" Graham muttered to himself, wryly. "That's pretty poor form."

He spent the rest of the morning doing nothing at all, and feeling annoyed at every wasted moment of it, until he stopped feeling sorry for himself and pulled himself together. He made a brief long-distance call, then summoned the Yellow Pages and called a travel agent – he still had some savings, and it had been far too long since he'd seen his family. A couple of hours later, everything fell into place – and he went to prepare for a few months away from the madness that was the wizarding world.

Graham left on a British Airways flight for New Zealand a few days later (magical transport over such a distance was even more expensive than the mundane equivalent, he had long since discovered); but the wizarding world didn't stop moving just because he'd left it.

* * *

"What do you mean, partial custody?" Sirius asked, his voice low, dangerous, and entirely without humour. "He's my bloody godson, and you honestly think he'd be better off with a bunch of bloody muggles who literally can't afford to look after him?!"

Although he had only been apprehended for a short time, magical law was not easily reversed. Sirius had at first been relieved that Dumbledore had been granted Power of Attorney over Harry after his arrest, and then enraged upon discovering that he had no intention of transferring that power to Sirius.

Dumbledore sighed, and took a deep draught of his tea. "My dear boy," he said, at length, "Believe me when I say that I understand your ire. Minerva said much the same thing, you know, albeit with perhaps a touch more restraint. Would you permit me to at least attempt to explain my reasoning?"

Sirius didn't drop his glare, but he shrugged and indicated that Dumbledore could continue.

"Lily Potter was a powerful and precocious witch, Merlin rest her soul, and not one prone to usinghalf-measures. When Voldemort visited the Potters that terrible night, she did - something - to do with blood magic. I have been doing my best to reconstruct the effect, but I have started to suspect most strongly that it concerns motherhood; I imagine I'll never be fully able to recreate it."

He gazed into the middle distance for a moment, before snapping back to attention.

"Sirius - so long as Harry stays close to a blood relative, he enjoys the protection his mother's blood conferred upon him - a protection which I believe to be the factor behind Voldemort's demise at his hand. Any blood connection needs the confluence of like with like to function - it is not magic I should strictly know about, of course, but I can tell you that, by and large, a year without some time in close contact will terminate the protection."

"So what?" Asked Sirius, confused but not mollified. "You-Know-Who is dead, isn't he?"

"What of his supporters, though?" Dumbledore asked. "Do you know, there have been a great many attempts to track down the boy-who-lived, my associates on... the other side... inform me - and all of them have been a failure. My instinct, if you can trust an old man's guess, is that anyone who wishes young Harry harm, abstractly or directly, will find that harm most difficult to enact, for the time being. Surely, Sirius, you understand how important it is that he stay with his relatives for at least a few months of the year?"

Sirius sat silently, glaring at Dumbledore, who smiled back benignly. But, after a few moments, he slumped back in his seat with a sigh.

"Just like you to have an actual reason." He muttered, sulkily. "Well, what counts as 'some time', and how close is 'close contact' then?"

Dumbledore stroked his beard, lost in thought for a moment.

"Well, I can't offer you a properly precise measure, magic being the mystery that it is; but I should imagine that a month or so in a year should be sufficient, but absolutely no less. A tie through blood isn't merely related to proximity, though – the power lies in the relationship, not the location."

"Right." said Sirius. "Let me think for a minute."

He stood from his chair, and paced across to gaze through the office window at the grounds, eyes clouded over in thought.

"You know what? If they're that badly off, I'll cart them all off on holiday every year, and they can take Harry with them. He might have a good time, they get a free holiday, and if we're all really lucky nobody'll get hurt."

He spun around and frowned at Dumbledore, who looked rather pleased with this turn of events.

"Is that good enough for you, old man?" Sirius scowled.

"My dear boy," Dumbledore replied, beaming at him, "I could hardly have devised a better solution myself."

After that, Sirius began to make his excuses, but Dumbledore held him back for a moment after escorting him to the stairs leading down from his office.

"Sirius," he asked, "how exactly was it that you and Mr Longshaw became acquainted? Just an old man's curiosity, of course, but I don't seem to recall you knowing each other at Hogwarts."

Again, Dumbledore noted the momentary shiftiness that the younger man displayed at the question; but Sirius was a far better liar than Graham had been, and quickly replied, chuckling.

"Well, we got to talking after Lily and James were in hiding – I'd pass messages between them. He actually came up with the safehouse system we used towards the end of the war, actually – set up his practice in one of the old Black properties, as a matter of fact."

"Ah, yes." Dumbledore replied, jovially. "A happy turn of fate, then! How fortunate for us all. Good day, my boy!"

Sirius had never fully mastered occlumency, and Dumbledore was a master of legilimency without parallel in the magical world. So it was with a great deal of introspection, that evening, that he mulled over the concept that Sirius had been trying to conceal behind his flimsy shields – for the fragmented image of a legion of babies which Dumbledore had intercepted made no sense at all.

* * *

"A week off?" Moody chuckled. "Take two, lass. Merlin knows it'd do you good to get out of here for once."

Amelia shifted uncomfortably in her seat; just because Alastor was right, she thought, didn't make the statement any less embarrassing.

"Thank you, sir." She said, rising from her seat. "If there's an emergency, I'll be here."

"I know you will." Moody said. "Oh, and – Amelia?"

She stopped at the door, turning back to face him.

"If you ever need any help with Susan – anything at all – just tell me, alright? We all miss Edgar; he was a hell of an -"

"Thank you." She interrupted him. "I'll be sure to do that if something comes up, sir."

It was only when she was alone in the lift that she slammed a fist against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment. Of course her brother and sister-in-law's deaths had been difficult on her – but it had been the middle of a war, and she'd been able to pass the package of responsibilities that had followed it onto friends and relatives because of the excuse her work as an auror had provided. But now-

Having reached the lobby, she apparated home, only to be greeted on arrival with the now-familiar sound of a young girl in tears.

"In here, Amelia!" A voice floated through from the kitchen, which was nominally cheerful but barely concealed an underlying note of worry.

"Hello, Polly!" Amelia called back, shrugging off her coat and going to join her friend. "Thank you so much again for looking after Susan."

She was greeted by a plump older lady, who was rocking a young child distractedly as she directed a pot to stir and vegetables to chop themselves. Polly Shacklebolt had been one of her mother's closest friends at Hogwarts, and after the attack that had killed her parents, her brother, and his wife, she had been a bastion of strength and support, and the only reason she'd been able to stay working after Susan had been passed into her care.

"She misses her mother, the poor tyke." Polly sighed, pausing her work to hand the child over to Amelia. "There you are, dear."

In Amelia's arms, Susan soon quieted, and stared up at her with wide eyes. Heaven knew it was a relief that Susan felt comfortable around her, Amelia thought, but it didn't change the fact that none of this was part of her life plan. She had had no desire to start a family – certainly not in the present, and, a small voice deep down whispered, perhaps in the future, as well.

"It's good that you've taken some time off, Amelia." The older woman said, apparently satisfied to leave her cooking for the time being. "Heaven knows that minding Susan is the least I can do, but you've barely been home since You-know-who fell. I think the break will do you a power of good. And Kingsley promised to keep an eye on your work while you're here, so you can keep it out of mind for the time being!"

Amelia was happy enough to agree with Mrs. Shacklebolt, and deftly moved the conversation away from her responsibilities and towards more comfortable topics. But it was only later, once she had put Susan to bed and Mrs. Shacklebolt had gone home, that she retrieved her bag, a little guiltily, and pulled out the stack of files which she'd surreptitiously been copying over the past few days, while the media frenzy which had erupted after Sirus's trial had half the ministry distracted, or at least uninterested in the comings and goings of a senior auror with a businesslike attitude.

She almost hated that her mind dwelled on things the way that it did, but – even though his actions had led to the aversion of a serious miscarriage of justice – she hadn't been able to stop wondering about the chain of events that had culminated in Longshaw risking a trip to Azkaban to interrogate Sirius (let alone the rest of the still-unbelievable story that had followed). Why had he been so particularly concerned to find out whether Sirius had betrayed his friends?

"The thing is, it can't have been the Order." She muttered, as she traced a finger down the fairly sparse report on Sirius which had been made following his arrest. "That's not how they _worked_."

Although she had not herself been a member, Amelia's careful enquiries (anything to stave off the grief) after her family had been murdered had been quite informative as to the way in which the Order worked; it had in fact been Dumbledore who'd furnished her with the information she'd sought.

"We all keep our personal lives very much separate from the – other things – which we get up to, Miss Bones." He'd told her. "I've assisted some of our members with their wards, if they've asked for help, but we do not commonly share our houses' locations. Edgar and Sarah were so very brave, and I cannot apologise enough for their passing – but, if it is any consolation, it was not sped on by the betrayal of a friend."

It hadn't been much of a consolation, although the news had done something for her morale at a low point in her life. Still, though – if Longshaw hadn't been worried about Sirius having betrayed his location – or that of someone he cared about – then why had he made that desperate trip to Azkaban? She remembered that he'd claimed Sirius knew where his muggle relatives were living, hence his desperation. But -

"That's just stupid," she grumbled, shoving the arrest report away and digging out Sirius' work files, "what damn situation would lead to Sirius knowing about – let alone caring about – some muggles enough that he knew where they lived?"

Although her memories of Longshaw at Hogwarts were limited to vague recollections of the rather timid young muggleborn who'd only just learned how to keep a low profile by his third year, she still didn't see how he'd got so very close to Sirius that he would introduce him to his parents; long-suffering experience had taught her that Sirius was as straight as they came, so she didn't think it likely that they'd been involved.

"Questions on questions on questions." She grumbled, flipping aimlessly through Sirius' caselog. "None of it makes a lick of sense."

An hour spent squinting at Sirius' unimpressive handwriting passed without much ado. Amelia was about to give Sirius' files up as a waste of time and catch an early night, when she stopped short half-way through a cursory read of an investigation he'd carried out a year previously, frowned, and reread the page she'd stopped at.

Sirius had been assigned to investigate the theft of the birth register from the ministry; as with several other Order members in the Aurors, he had been given lighter investigatory work than most on the basis that he spent his free time doing the dangerous bits without asking to be paid for them.

The fact that the theft had taken place was still something only a few people officially knew about (although Amelia had no doubt that the Order, at least, and possibly You-Know-Who had both found out about its disappearance), but the investigation Sirius had carried out was nothing like his usual standard of work. He'd barely set out the facts of the case, had quickly dismissed a series of sensible possibilities on the basis of relatively spurious links – apparently the fact that the thieves had set off an alarm meant there was no possibility that the culprits were Unspeakables, even though if they hadn't set off the alarm would clearly have been giving themselves away, for example.

Worst of all, he'd filed the case as 'safe to defer', a catchall term which the aurors had adopted during the war to signal cases which might not be solved, but were either solvable at the aurors' leisure, didn't represent a serious threat, or simply weren't important enough to pursue in the middle of a war. It meant that the case would be filed away – effectively closed – indefinitely. And Amelia knew, through Moody, that the Order hadn't been the ones to take the book.

"What were you hiding, Sirius?" She murmured, staring at nothing. "What _are_ you hiding?"

* * *

December in Scotland is not, typically, the kind of environment which encourages romantic sojourns as the sun sets, but magic is a great facilitator, so David and Jessica were enjoying a picnic perched on a warm, grassy knoll on the side of a mountain, as they looked down on a snow-strewn landscape stretching down to a distant loch.

Michaelmas term had finally finished, and the pair of doctors-in-training were celebrating. On David's request, Jessica had taken him to the site of her favourite Hogwarts field trip: an unplottable mountain valley in the north of Scotland, where an eternal summer gazed down on a Scottish winter beneath it. Although they'd been engaged for over a year, it had only been a technical engagement (to avoid questions from the Ministry, should any arise); David had other plans.

"It's a quirk of the witchcraft that went into this place." said Jessica, who he'd asked to explain the magic behind the valley. "The Glenmore coven used the leyline here for an early arithmantic ritual, back when it was still a young discipline – and they trapped a perfect summer's day, just in this valley. It'll always be clear and warm, the heather will always be blossoming, and – like you can see – there'll always be a perfect sunset."

There was a moment of contemplative silence, and David said, lowly, "It's not the sunset I want to look at."

Jessica giggled, twisting to face him, only to gasp as the laugh caught in her throat, for David was gazing at her, an open ring-box in his hands.

"Jess." he said. "I've known I loved you for such a long time, but – learning about the magic in you has only made me love you more, and I didn't think that was even possible. Would you marry me, and make me a happier man than I could ever deserve to be?"

Jessica had started to sniffle as he spoke, and she found that her throat was suddenly too heavy to speak – so she settled for a tremulous smile, and pulled David in for a kiss that conveyed her answer as well as any words could.

* * *

"This is… very kind of you, Mr. Black." said Vernon Dursley, stiffly. "I don't like imposing, but it's not an offer we'd be minded to turn down."

It had been an enlightening conversation for Sirius, who had arrived to negotiate terms with much the same attitude he'd carried into battle against the Death Eaters, only to discover that the Dursleys he knew by reputation and distant acquaintance had changed rather drastically.

"Well, Mr. Dursley," he said, "A holiday's the least I can do. You're taking this all much better than I thought you'd be!"

"Never let it be said that the leopard can't change his spots." Vernon said magnanimously, giving himself perhaps more credit for his new attitude towards wizards than he really deserved. "Ah, and here's Pet again."

"You are sure you know how to look after a child?" Petunia asked sharply, as she carried Harry into the living room. "Lily never gave you the… best reputation for responsibility, you know."

"Oh, of course." Sirius said breezily. "I'm a dab hand with kids, and I'll have a house elf to make sure that nothing'll happen to the little tyke whether I'm there or not."

"...House Elf." Vernon said, slowly. "And what's that, exactly?"

"Oh, you know, just your standard elf." Sirius said, taking Harry from Petunia, very carefully. "Four feet tall, wrinkly, big ears, and loves to cook and clean. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Someone needs to have a word with Tolkien, then." Vernon grumbled, rising to his feet. "Is that everything, Mr. Black?"

"Should be," Sirius said, "and I'll floo you if anything comes up. Toodle-pip!"

And with that, Sirius apparated away, making the Dursleys jump and leaving them more than a little confused.

"Flue?" Vernon asked a few moments later, bemused. "The thing that goes on a chimney?"

"No idea." Petunia responded, dryly. "But I'm sure it'll manage to be as foolish as everything else about magic."

* * *

AN: I'm terribly sorry for the wait! I've been trapped in the mire of my professional qualifications, and I've only just had the time to start writing again as of a week ago. This chapter's rather fragmented, and a prelude to some relatively significant transition – I've no intention of getting mired in the same few weeks, so things'll start moving forwards at more of a pace.

Reviews, as always, are solicited, appreciated, and everything in between. I'll still be writing, but I make no promises as to the update schedule!


	12. Foundational studies

**C** **hapter 12: Foundational Studies**

"Would all passengers please stow their tray tables and re-fasten their seatbelts to prepare for landing?"

It had taken a particularly bumpy flight over the Pacific to remind Graham of his long-forgotten fear of flying, and, after a day of uncomfortable travel, he was more than ready to return to the literal and metaphorical terra firma of England. After participating in the shared disgruntlement that all economy class passengers feel as he waited for the business class passengers to disembark, and the subsequent irritation of an hour spent queueing at passport control, it was with considerable relief that Graham stole away into a toilet stall, shrunk his luggage, and apparated home.

Although he had expected as much success from the spell as anything else that Lily had recorded in her book of household charms, Graham was still enormously gratified to discover that Lockwood was in the same condition he'd kept it in, down to the still-fresh groceries he'd left in the pantry. He'd asked Remus to keep him appraised of any particularly pressing developments, and to go through any owl mail that he received on his behalf (not that he'd expected much on that front), so he was able to enjoy a fairly leisurely afternoon and a full eight hours of dreamless-sleep rest to counteract his jet-leg before he re-immersed himself in the tasks which faced him.

Sure enough, as they'd arranged, Remus arrived the next morning, looking in reasonable nick, with a surprisingly organised agenda for the two of them to go over.

"You do realise that you didn't have to go to all this trouble, right?" Graham asked, dryly, as he skimmed through the documents that Remus had handed him. "I mean, much as I'd like to be able to, I'm not paying you or anything."

Remus waved away his complaints, though.

"Well, no, you aren't paying me." He said. "But, because of my condition, it's quite a struggle to find work in the magical world – most of the contracts for employment are magically binding and I'd have to disclose I was a werewolf to sign them, which would make the offer void in any case. So Sirius decided that I should become an employee of – whatever this is going to be – and he's been bankrolling me. Sorry for not asking you first!"

"Sirius?" Graham asked, frowning. "Is he making that much money as an auror?"

To his surprise, Remus laughed, rummaged in his pocket for a scrap of newspaper, and passed it to Graham, who saw that it was an obituary for Walburga Black, fondly remembered in the article as a pillar of the wizarding community who'd stood up for the old ways in a 'difficult transitional time for the community', which is to say, that she had been a bigot who'd been too polite to openly support you-know-who.

"Sirius inherited everything from the old crone." Remus explained, still smirking. "After he was put in prison, Walburga figured he'd been a double agent for You-know-who, and repatriated him – but she never got round to fixing her mistake after he was released, so the Malfoys – Narcissa Malfoy was the next legitimate Black in line, you see – didn't get a penny when she died. I hear that Lucius is _beyond_ furious."

"Well, obviously I don't mind at all," said Graham, "though this is all quite sudden. Shall we get down to business?

* * *

It transpired that Remus had been a very busy man indeed in the time that Graham had been gone. He had been documenting all the new wizards and witches that were being born (almost seventy new magical manifestations in that time suggested that the plan was still well underway), and had enchanted a copy of the A-Z Road Atlas to mark their locations ("I've quite a lot of experience with this sort of thing." he explained to Graham, although he didn't explain why that was). He'd also come up with preliminary ideas for lessons, something Graham had also been thinking about, and they spent some time batting ideas back and forth. His big idea, though, was his proposal for a pilot scheme.

"There are only going to be sixty wizards or so in Harry's year, like any other normal year – of which maybe ten or fifteen will be muggleborn. It's a good number to try out the sort of things we teach and to give ourselves time to tweak whatever syllabus we come up with." Remus pointed out. "I mean, we should be making the teething process as painless as possible."

"I couldn't agree more." Graham said. "But the one thing I would say is that if we'll be starting a year early, we need to sort out how we'll be funding this enterprise. For all that I'm grateful for Sirius' help, I really don't like the idea of using him to bankroll us, and there are pretty significant costs we'll need to be able to meet."

"We'll need four teachers, for a start." Remus said, shuffling through his papers to find his prospective syllabus. "And potentially even more on top of that for every subsequent year of students, depending on how we time and organise lessons. All that won't come cheap."

"Plus food, equipment, potentially the cost of some house-elves to help things out, and so on – like you say, not cheap." Graham concluded. "Luckily, though, I've had an idea of my own."

It had taken quite a few drinks and some rather heartfelt conversations, but Graham and his brother had reconciled while he had been away, and Graham had been able to catch up on his brother's life. He'd always been more hands-on than Graham, so it was no great surprise that his brother had gone into the construction industry, and he had mentioned how much money some of his clients were making by buying, renovating, and re-selling properties.

"The way I see it, it's a pretty simple concept." he said, passing some before-and-after photos he'd purloined in New Zealand over to Remus. "We buy decrepit properties through a muggle company, do them up in a muggle-appropriate way, and sell them on."

Remus had not been raised in the muggle world, so the concept was rather strange to him. If a wizard needed something done to their house, they would buy a book of spells, and do it themselves; while wizarding architects made good money designing properties and their ward schemes, there wasn't really such a thing as a construction industry.

"I don't see how that'll let us pay our way." He said, dubiously. "I mean, how much money can you get for repairing a house for muggles – a few hundred galleons? That's not going to help us very much."

Graham gave an involuntary snort of laughter, and shook his head. "More like ten thousand galleons or more, depending on the size of the house. Muggle home renovation is much, much more expensive than the wizarding equivalent."

"Well, I've clearly been in the wrong line of work, then – wizarding jobs are _rubbish_ compared to that." said Remus, faintly shocked. "And you're sure none of this will look suspicious?"

"We might need to wait a little while before selling to avoid scrutiny, and we'll have to use some of the money to pay for a muggle lawyer, a surveyor, and so on." said Graham, thoughtfully. "But we won't be breaking any laws, or even the statute, so long as we're quite careful about things – so no, I don't think it'll be a problem – and we'll be running Lockwood as a summer school, so we can have an off-season to raise money."

"If you're sure." Remus repeated, still feeling a little dubious. "So – how do we get started?"

* * *

The way that they got started, it transpired, was by getting back in touch with Delia Thistle, the muggleborn witch who Graham had looked after when she'd been laid low by a vicious muscle-atrophying curse in the last months of the war. She had just returned to front-line service as the war ended, so Graham was relieved to discover that she was still well, though she was a little suspicious at the prospect of a job which Graham set out for her when he called her later that day.

"I don't understand the target market, Graham." she said, dubiously. "You're perfectly smart, and I'd fancy myself a decent teacher – but we're – well, not the right sort."

"Well, I can explain, of course. But -" Graham winced, "it has to be confidential. As in, you'll need to sign a binding agreement before I explain more. I promise, really, that it'll be worth it. You can name a meeting place, if you like, and we can talk things through there?"

Delia met Graham later that afternoon, and eventually agreed to sign a minor binding agreement – no more dangerous than the ones they'd learned in their NEWTS in Charms, but it meant that Delia (who Graham remembered being just the slightest bit vain about her appearance at Hogwarts) would be subjected to a variety of embarrassing hexes and a pretty serious befuddlement jinx that'd confuse her story if she tried to spill the beans on purpose without Graham's consent.

Only then was Graham comfortable enough to explain the details of his proposal to Delia. To his surprise, she accepted the scope of his plans with surprising understanding, after clearing up a few questions and scepticisms ("You're seriously saying that you have a single vial of, uh, sample, which is constantly transforming due to, what, a defective polyjuice variant, that _replicates_ to replace any other sample taken in the facility, and that actually _works_?" she'd asked, disbelievingly, only partially placated by his explanation of Lily's scheme). However, she'd kept up with the muggle news well enough that she was at least aware of the basic principles behind the idea.

It didn't take long for Delia to become quite enthusiastic at the prospect of being able to teach; it was something she'd been looking to do ever since she'd graduated Hogwarts, and it had been her personal frustration that there was as little provision in the Wizarding world for her to do so as there was for Graham to be a healer (although she was restricted by social norms, not by legislation). On the other hand, she did have some questions about the whole scheme which Graham hadn't even considered.

"It's all very well that you're inducting all these new families into the magical world, but have you thought about how you're actually going to keep them secret?" She asked, thoughtfully. "Just because you explain that the parents and kids need to keep it a secret doesn't mean they will – especially the children. Kids love to be special, you know – weren't you desperate to tell your friends about magic?"

It was a troubling question for Graham to confront, because he remembered how much he'd hated being teased by his old schoolfriends for going to a 'special school for the gifted'; his brother had seethed and resented his presence at home during the summer, and he'd tended to become some bullies' target of convenience when he'd been let outside to play. It was only the dire warnings that Hogwarts had made about revealing the existence of magic that kept him from boasting about just how 'gifted' he was to these old friends when he'd felt particularly isolated.

"Honestly, I haven't thought about it yet." Graham said, rather embarrassed. "Beyond the basics of warning them, that is."

"Well, it doesn't need to be complicated," Delia replied, amused at his discomfort. "Impress the importance of secrecy on the parents – lie to them, even, and tell them that if they're found out revealing the existence of magic they might have their memories wiped and children taken away, which they'll be desperate not to happen if they've struggled so much to conceive as to try a sperm bank. We should teach the children about secrecy directly, of course, but the most important thing is to convince the parents, because they'd do most of the work for us after we show how important secrecy is."

"We?" Graham asked, rather pleased at her deigning to include herself in this proposed course of action.

"Well, I don't mean to be presumptive, or anything," Delia said, blushing a little, "but you're clearly interested enough to reveal some pretty hefty secrets, and I think I can handle whatever job interview you could throw at me. I mean, I actually studied for a supplementary degree in muggle teaching when I graduated from Hogwarts, which I doubt many other candidates have done."

Graham paused for a moment, deciding that he didn't need to mention how narrow his recruiting pool was, before saying, "No, not as such – though of course we'd need to have a proper talk about what you could bring to the table before we take any steps."

Internally, though, he was feeling rather impressed. He hadn't thought about _training_ to be a teacher – but the omission suddenly seemed a glaring one. Just knowing a lot about magic, after all, didn't actually qualify you to teach it, especially to children.

"Anyway," he continued, after a moment. "I'm sure you'll want a tour of our facilities. Care to join me on a trip to Devon?"

* * *

Delia was suitably impressed by Lockwood manor, and Remus was quite taken by Delia's qualifications when they met (although Graham recalled the rumours that Remus had harboured something of a crush on her at Hogwarts, and privately found his effusive praise of the older witch rather amusing). Before the end of the day, they'd agreed on a provisional contract of employment going forwards – Delia hadn't been hugely enthralled by the prospect of spending time working on household maintenance, but she'd been bolstered by the fact that her potential salary would dwarf the meagre income she was earning as a stock potion brewer, and so she happily agreed to join Graham and Remus in their enterprise as soon as she could give notice to her old employers.

In the meantime, Graham and Remus got to work converting one of the rooms in the manor at Lockwood to an office, before taking some time to puzzle over the requirements needed to set up a muggle company in England. Eventually, after a short meeting with a lawyer from the sleepy muggle town a few miles away from Lockwood, Graham became the new director of 'Longshaw Properties Limited', feeling more than a little bit bemused by the rules that the lawyer had told him he'd now have to obey in that role. Remus had wisely decided to leave the legalese to him, and had instead spent his time poring through a selection of property magazines which Graham had picked up for him.

Sure enough, he'd found a few sites in a particularly advanced state of disrepair; it only took another trip to the local law firm to arrange the conveyancing of a purchase and a couple of weeks spent waiting for completion, and Graham found himself the new owner of the shell of a farmhouse, left untouched since its last owners had died in the fifties. His lawyer had quietly confided in him that it was quite an ambitious project for such a new company to undertake, but Graham had confidently rebuffed him.

"Alright, Graham – I've set up the muggle-repelling ward, so we should be good to go." Remus called, trudging up the track which led away from the house. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Graham replied, rolling up his sleeves. "Shall we?"

Remus shrugged, and a couple of spells later, was at work re-setting the walls – the surveyor had said it would be prohibitively expensive to remedy the various structural flaws in the property, but Graham watched, pleased, as months of work flew by in the space of minutes, bricks wriggling into new, more stable places, while the assorted greenery which had accrued over decades of disrepair ripped itself out of the building and tumbled to the ground.

Meanwhile, Graham circled the building, vanished the rotting windows and replaced them with newly conjured oak frames, and, with a muttered " _Refenestro vitriam_ ", began to transfigure new glass for the windows, watching with pleasure as it flowed, liquid-like, to fill the frames he'd made. It was easy to forget, he thought, just how magical magic really was – occasionally being reminded of that fact was one of the few privileges he felt that he'd derived from his non-magical upbringing.

A few hours passed in this way, and, by the time that they stopped for lunch, Remus and Graham were able to enjoy it in the new dining room they'd just created in accordance with what the style catalogue Graham had brought with him had called the 'new Scandinavian mode'.

"I can see how this will have the biggest profit margin," said Remus, taking a bite of his sandwich, "but the longer I think about it, the more I see what we're doing being more widely applicable."

He swallowed, thinking, and continued. "I mean. Look at this table we're eating off, for example. It's a lovely beech, the pattern follows the grain of the wood, it looks sanded and varnished, and so on. And you transfigured it in about five seconds, right? But how much would it sell for, to muggles, that is?"

"Tables aren't luxury goods, obviously." said Graham, thoughtfully. "but I think I understand what you're getting at. Wizards seem to think that they'd need a philosopher's stone to create something for nothing – in fact, a competent wizard with a wand should basically be set for life without lifting a finger, if he knows how to palm things off to the muggles."

"I just feel a bit embarrassed by it." Remus confessed, blushing. "I was never – well, even when I was happy in school, I thought it had to be downhill from there. Dumbledore let me go to Hogwarts, but he told me that, you know, in return, he might need me to – infiltrate the packs, if the need arose, and it terrified me, but I didn't think I really had another choice if I wanted to make a living, and I did owe him – but if I knew I could have lived as comfortably as I liked doing this stuff, I reckon I'd have been a much happier child."

They were both silent for a few moments.

"You do know that it was wrong for Dumbledore to have solicited you like that, Remus?" Graham asked, carefully. "He was in a position of power over you, just like he was over all the muggleborns he enticed into the Order, and I reckon that he abused that authority."

"Dumbledore had every damn right to ask!" Remus snapped, to Graham's surprise. "He wasn't just a teacher, he was a general, and he had an asset in me which he needed to use. And I was fine with that, and I wouldn't be the man I am if I hadn't been!"

"I wasn't trying to offend," Graham offered, weakly, "only, you were just a child, and he expected-"

"We were _all_ just children." Remus interrupted, irritated. "But some of us decided to fight, because we knew that we couldn't just run away from it all and pretend that the war wasn't happening."

Graham stiffened at the insult. He did not like being called a coward.

"And some of us saw people just like us being slaughtered, and realised that being part of a fight isn't quite as much fun when you're the sort that gets killed more than captured!" He snapped back, reserve forgotten. "You know that, right?"

"What, that standing up for the light means you might get hurt? Yes, actually, I do know that." Remus growled, shoving his chair back and clambering to his feet, suddenly furious. "Unlike some I could care to mention."

"Tell me, Remus, then." said Graham, suddenly quite quiet. "I spent a lot of time adjacent to the Order in the later part of the war, and I spent a long time before that keeping close tabs on it, and the muggleborns who were fighting in it, and _especially_ the ones in our age-group. How many of those who joined your order – and I count twelve, at least – do you think survived to see the end of the war?"

"Well, there's Delia, obviously." the younger man said, dismissively. "and Joe Wight's gone back to working on his broom designs, and – and –"

Graham smiled, bitterly, as a glimmer of doubt registered on Remus' face.

"Yeah. I thought so." he said. "Not Benjy Fenwick, then, who left about a thumb and a few organs behind to identify him with, or Marlene Mckinnon, or Fergus Young, or Charles Ellis, and I could go on, as I'm sure you know. I don't think you understand this, Remus, though I know you're closer to the understanding than the others because you're a werewolf. But we're disposable to this world we live in, we _muggleborns_. When the Death Eaters found one of you lot, they tortured you, sure, or put you under the Imperius curse, or imprisoned you, or whatever. That's why it was such a surprise when they killed the Boneses, remember? I mean, You-Know-Who, killing a _pureblood_ family? But us muggleborns? We're basically nothing, even to Dumbledore, or he wouldn't have thrown us at seasoned terrorists who delighted in murdering them."

"That's _not_ what he did!" Remus bit out, furiously. "He wanted to save them – to save you –"

"Well, he didn't want it enough to give a crap about saving their actual lives, did he?" Graham shouted, enforced calm forgotten. "You're right that Dumbledore was a general. But he didn't see us all as worth the same, did he? It wasn't James and Sirius, pureblood heirs extraordinaire, who he sent on the suicide mission that infiltrating the Death Eaters was, was it? It was Charles and Philip, two sweet kids who were head over heels in love, brilliant wizards in the making, and then flat out murdered because of their filthy blood. Dumbledore might well have been a general, but he knew exactly which soldiers he did and didn't care about. There were twenty-eight muggleborns in my year, the year above, and your year – and I count eighteen of them dead, and another two missing, as of today. How does that statistic compare to the rest of your oh-so-brave fighters for the cause?"

There was a long, fragile moment, as they glared at each other, before Remus sighed, averting his eyes.

"Eight out of twenty-eight?" he asked, quietly. "You're – all that's left?"

"Why do you think I've pivoted my life onto this crazy, stupid path I've enticed you to join me on?" Graham responded, heavily. "You can trace a pattern back through all these events, if you want, and you'll find that there's some kind of a muggleborn slaughter every hundred years, or whatever period. We're the chaff that gets thrown away every time the wizarding world has an ideological upset, and for what it's worth, I bet that you're part of that same category as well. And if changing that's all I ever get done, it'd be enough."

"I still think you're wrong to talk about Dumbledore the way that you are," Remus said, carefully, "but – I do take your point, and I'd managed to forget how devastating the war was to muggleborns given how bad it ended up being for me and mine. I'm sorry about insinuating what I did about you, too – that wasn't fair of me."

"It's alright – these are emotional topics, and they're sore for both of us, Remus." Graham said, wearily. "Shall we get back to work?"

The afternoon passed a little more tensely than the morning had, though the argument passed into the back of both men's minds a little more easily when there were the practical considerations of house-building to consider.

However, as he wove the roof back together, repaired tiles mingling with newly conjured ones, Graham felt a little bad for having raised the topic with Remus at all. He knew from his many conversations with the other man that the other man felt his ability to live as a wizard was owed entirely to Dumbledore, and that was probably true enough. Even so, it didn't change anything which Graham felt about the older wizard, who in Graham's eyes had done his level best to entice his younger charges into a war he knew full well they had only a minimal chance of surviving. It hurt to feel that your best defender in the magical world still, in some way, saw people like you as disposable.

In any case, by the end of the day, Graham and Remus were able to look at their accomplishments: a charming, freshly-painted farmhouse in a verdant clearing, only a complete rewiring and plumbing away from full muggle readiness. Graham had done his level best with the piping, but he suspected it was the kind of thing best left to experts (or, if he was being honest with himself, with people who knew anything at all about pipes).

"I still can't believe that this is worth as much as you say it is, just from a bit of maintenance" Remus murmured, staring up at the building.

"It'd be more, if we knew how electricity worked," Graham remarked, idly vanishing the piles of detritus which had accumulated over the day's work as he spoke. "I reckon if we spend another few hours on the garden tomorrow, we can leave this place for a few weeks so that it won't be suspicious for us to have managed the do-up, and stick it back on the market. Shouldn't be an issue."

"Well, I'll leave the repelling ward up for now, then." Remus said. "Do you fancy a drink at Sirius'? I bet you'd like to hear exactly how enjoyable he's been finding parenthood."

"I'm always up for hearing a few embarrassing anecdotes!" Graham readily agreed. He sensed, rightly, that both of them were looking for a way to avoid the awkward impasse they'd reached earlier that day, and an enforced change of subject could do them both a power of good. "After you?"

Remus shrugged, and disapparated away, leaving Graham alone in the twilight of the clearing to gaze around one more time.

"All this – it's all going to work," he whispered, "because it has to work. I won't let it fail – I promise."

He wasn't sure who he was making the promise to – perhaps to the new generation of wizards he was creating, to the muggleborns who'd lost their lives for the cause, or just to himself. But it firmed his resolve either way, and, with a deep breath and a quiet pop of displaced air, he was gone.

* * *

AN: Thank you, again, for reading! This is a slightly longer chapter than the last, which is a good thing, though it did rather get away from me, hence the slightly erratic pacing! I'm very excited to be closing on a hundred reviews, so thanks to all who've given your appreciated – and, as always, much solicited – feedback. I'm terribly grateful.

As a side note, I noticed a few people complaining that I hadn't adequately explained how the whole 'banking' concept was meant to work, so I did include a reprised explanation in this chapter. I think it's a bit of a cop-out, but the reason for this is that I decided that chasing wizards for samples wasn't really what I wanted from writing this!

All best to you all, and thanks again.


	13. The long arm of the lore

**Chapter 13: The long arm of the lore**

Two things became apparent to Graham after a short while in Sirius' company that evening; first, that he was absolutely and unquestionably devoted to Harry, and second, that he was indisputably in over his head when it came to the basic principles of parenting. His flat in Notting Hill was strewn with toys, the kitchen counter was bursting with the paraphernalia of parenthood, most of it still in its wrapping, and his face seemed to have acquired a fair few frown-lines since Graham had last seen him.

"Mopsy!" he called, voice slightly strained, "How is our young protegé doing?"

The diminutive house-elf that had appeared at his call wrung her hands as she replied.

"The young master is being asleep for now," she squeaked, "but I's thinking he'll be waking again soon – he's not eaten his dinner, and will be hungry soon."

"Thank you – could you tell me when he wakes up? I'll come and try to feed him myself."

The elf nodded again, and, excusing herself, disappeared again. Sirius sank back into his armchair, groaning.

"So you're enjoying parenthood then?" Remus asked, eyebrows raised. "I always said you'd be natural at it."

"Well, that's very funny." Sirius responded, sulkily. "But you try being cheerful when you're up at four every day trying to make a toddler go to sleep. I'm lucky he likes seeing Padfoot, or I'd never manage to!"

"What's 'Padfoot', then?" Graham asked, curiously – a curiosity only enhanced by Sirius slightly blanching at the question.

"Um, well," he began, "I have an enchanted toy which James made, and I bring it out for Harry when he's feeling sad-"

"Too vague." Graham interrupted, grinning. "Padfoot was one of those mysterious marauders, this much I know, and I'm guessing, from context, that Remus may just have been 'Moony'. Am I right?"

"Well, ah, I can't disclose the very important secrets of the marauders-" Sirius interjected.

"Which probably means that you're Padfoot," Graham said, cutting him off again. "Which means that you're saying he likes seeing you. Which makes no sense, because you'd just have said me, so what I'm getting at is, what are you hiding, Padfoot?"

Sirius cringed at the deduction, but Remus started to chuckle.

"You may as well tell him, Sirius. It's not like he can hold something over your head, is it?"

"Fine." The other man said, a little bit sulkily. "Well, you remember I told you that Peter was an animagus?"

He stood up, and in a moment of blurred form transformed into a huge black dog, made a whuffing noise which sounded just a little bit like 'so there', and turned back into a human again.

Graham was agog, and Remus' laugh grew at his expression of gaping surprise. Animagi were terribly rare, and – not that he'd known how, as the practice was very much obscure – he'd always harboured something of a secret desire to learn to be one himself.

"So that means that Wormtail was Pettigrew, I guess – and Prongs – was James a moose or something?"

"Deer." Sirius confirmed. "We all learned so that we could keep Remus company when he was suffering from his – hairy little problem – at Hogwarts."

"Incredible." Graham muttered. "So – how did you do it, exactly? I wanted to find out how to become one myself, but I could never find the books in the library, even in the restricted section."

Sirius winced. "It was a pureblood thing, I'm afraid. I found a translation of De Mutatione – it's pretty much the only guide to the process I know about – in our library upstairs, and we worked off that. I think I remember my father saying the governors had taken it out of Hogwarts a few decades ago to stop it falling into the wrong hands, after Professor McGonagall registered to be one – she's only a half-blood, you see."

"Sounds about right," Graham said, a little bitterly. "Well, I suppose that answers that question. Jessica will be devastated to hear that – it was always one of her dreams, you see, and McGonagall told her that the board had banned any instruction in the art because it was too dangerous."

"It's her wedding soon, right?" Sirius asked. "To that muggle bloke?"

"David, and yes." Remus supplied. "Nice chap – I talked to him for a little while at Lily and James's wedding."

"Why don't I get you a copy of the notes we made for you to pass on to her and look at yourself?" Sirius offered. "It's relatively complex stuff, but not as much as you might think – the bottleneck for us was actually some of the ingredients for the form-finding potion and the ritual of change, and the rest is just practice plus time."

"That's – a princely gift." Graham demurred. "I know she'd kill me if I said no, but it's a little embarrassing to be the subject of all this kindness, Sirius."

Remus nodded, very subtly. Both he and Graham were proud enough to feel quite put out at Sirius' generosity, whether or not he'd just come into possession of the Black finances.

"Mate," Sirius said, uncharacteristically serious for a moment. "The price for all of this stuff has always been the same – change our world and make it a better place. I figure that if you're doing that, I can be as generous as I like, because it's for a good cause."

"That said, a little babysitting now and then wouldn't go amiss." He continued, grinning. "I'm heading back to work in a few days, and Mopsy deserves a break sometimes – she's a sweetheart, but she's getting on a bit and I don't want to tax her too heavily."

As he finished talking, the sound of crying drifted from across the hall, and Sirius levered himself out of his chair, as Mopsy peeked into the living room to summon him.

"Don't worry, I'm on my way." Sirius said. "You two, help yourselves to another drink, why don't you? Just because I'm not able to drink doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to. Be back soon, I hope!"

* * *

"And they're really, properly, real? You're sure it's not a joke Sirius pulled?"

Jessica had been quite busy with the dual duties of wedding planning (about which she had some quite specific requirements) and medical qualifications, and she had barely seen Graham since he'd come back from New Zealand. The fact that he'd actually brought her the means to make a long-discarded dream reality, however, rather overshadowed their happy reunion, and she was still, ten minutes into their conversation, in something of a state of shock, her cup of tea long forgotten on her kitchen counter.

In lieu of responding, Graham opened his mouth, indicating a small mandrake leaf that he'd attached to the inside of his cheek with a sticking charm.

"Sirius is a dope, it's true," He said, seriously, "but he's not a murderer, and this animagus stuff can go extremely wrong if you don't follow the steps very carefully. Luckily, they're not too complex, at least for a sensible adult witch or wizard, and I took the liberty of picking up the ingredients you'll need."

He indicated the small box he'd set out on the table, and took a moment to explain its contents: a mandrake leaf, the ready-made animagus potion in stasis (into which she'd need to insert her leaf after holding it in her month for a full calendar month), and the other peculiar pieces which made up the final formula. The closest equivalent to a magical cottage industry was the production of the vast miscellaneous range of ingredients necessary for the range of potions which the magical world demanded, which meant that such bizarre ingredients as a silver teaspoon of dewdrops were in fact surprisingly simple to locate, not to mention relatively inexpensive.

"I know how busy you are," he said, "but I can help out when it comes to supervising this stuff. The instructions aren't that complex – at least compared to our NEWTs, though it has been a while for you, of course – but I can be on hand whenever I'm needed – my schedule is pretty flexible, you s- oof!"

Jessica had seized him in a slightly over-fierce hug, inadvertently winding him.

"It's a dream come true." she said, before giggling at the sight of Graham gasping for breath as she drew away. "And another task on my plate, but there's nothing wrong about that, is there?"

"At least you don't have to deal with an overbearing soon-to-be-mother-in-law when it comes to turning into an animal, though." Graham said, teasingly.

"Oh, come on, Gray – Jemimah is a wonderful woman and I won't hear a word against her. Mainly because I can't get a word in when she's around, admittedly, but still!"

She checked her watch, and gasped a little when she saw the time.

"I'm afraid I've got to run," she said, hurrying over to the kitchen table to get her satchel, "I've got to be at the John Radcliffe in 10 minutes! I'll owl Sirius a thanks – and, if I've got the time, an RSVP for the wedding. I'm sure he'll find it hilarious!"

* * *

Amelia Bones' very irritating day at the Ministry began very similarly to that of any employee returning from a holiday – by clearing out her inbox. Unfortunately for her, that inbox was strewn all over her desk in the form of crumpled paper planes. The ministry had been promising to reform the interdepartmental memo system since long before she'd joined it – it had been pioneered in the 1930s by a wizard who'd seen muggles playing with paper planes and had seen an opportunity to save time and money compared to the previously employed methods of owling, walking, or shouting. And, she thought, as she grumpily skimmed, crumpled, and discarded the latest of the ministry's superfluous communications, it actually worked quite well, if you were there to keep on top of it the whole time. It was just a waste of her morning when she really wanted to get back to grips with her groaning caseload, which seemed only to have got heavier since the war had ended.

"Deep cover operation, is it?" She muttered, as she finally reached Kingsley's scrawled apology for not handling her caseload. "Well, thank you for leaving things in 'Dawlish's capable hands' - he's shown just how bloody capable he is."

The excavation continued, and, swatting the occasional message from the air as it arrived, she finally reached the bottom of the pile, and began to read through the missives which she felt merited retention and her attention.

Things, it transpired, had not gone entirely well for the ministry in the time she'd been away. Bagnold had made a sterling attempt to retain her position, and had waged something of a successful media campaign trying to justify her extrajudicial powers – but, while it had been enough to keep her in office, everybody knew that she held very little power and, sensing that the national mood had shifted, she had announced that she would not be seeking re-election later that year. In the meantime, something of an administrative deadlock had developed.

What a minister without power meant for the ministry itself was, essentially, a lot of interdepartmental jockeying and not very much getting done. Magical Sports was making a hash out of the latest Quidditch arrangements, and aurors were apparently being co-opted to manage security at matches because somebody had let the contract they'd held with some security contractors expire; the Department of Goblin Relations had managed to completely botch a simple loan agreement negotiation and were now fighting off the Department for Magical Creatures' attempts to integrate it, and the prison guards at Azkaban were threatening to strike if they didn't get a pay-rise in the next week, although, to be fair, that tended to happen a few times a year in any case.

What it all meant for Amelia – like all the other ministry employees whose jobs were doing things rather than telling people to do things – was no overtime for at least the next two months, a lot of late nights, and compulsory shift-work as a security detail for the minister – her bodyguards had apparently just stopped turning up for work, and Bagnold's powerlessness meant that a proper replacement for them was not, apparently, in the ministerial budget. It was, in other words, an enormous pain in the posterior.

"Well, backlogs don't clear themselves, do they?" she muttered, rhetorically, and flipped open the case file at the top of the pile Dawlish had left to accrue. "The sooner I start-"

"Well, if it isn't my favourite superior in the whole wide world!"

"- never mind." she finished, and, reluctantly, swivelled round to face her latest annoyance. "Welcome back, Sirius."

As the head of her particular squadron, Amelia knew Sirius only too well, which is why she'd been so hurt to discover his initial betrayal, and (though she hid it very well) relieved at his acquittal. He was a good duellist, and he had a sharper intuition than he got credit for, but there were still days when she wished he'd never existed.

Sirius said, "Thanks, boss, and same to you – I hope Susan's been well." and sauntered over to his own desk, groaned at its own heaving mass of paper, and started to pick at it.

'Just desserts.' Amelia thought, smiling a little, but – as she got back to work – she couldn't help but recall her discovery of the younger man's botched casework, and wonder how she was going to confront him over it. She wanted something like evidence of a motive for his sloppiness before she did so, and she hadn't the slightest idea where, or how, to find it.

The rest of her day passed excruciatingly slowly, as she dug her way back into each of the seventeen matters that she was supposed to be devoting her fullest attentions to. Eventually, she was the last one in her office – she'd been the first there as well, she thought – after Sirius excused himself to put his protegé to bed at seven.

"Five more minutes," she said, "and I'll finish up."

As she was packing her stationery away, though, her eye was drawn to the heap of discarded paper which Sirius had left in the bin at the side of his desk. Departmental policy stipulated that aurors should vanish their detritus at the end of every working day for confidentiality reasons, but Sirius had forgotten the time and left in something of a rush. She wondered -

" _Accio Sirius Black's writing._ " she incanted, pointing at the pile of crumpled paper he'd left behind. One of the first things that any auror worth their salt learned was the value of a carefully defined summoning charm, and, sure enough, around fifteen pieces of paper flung themselves at Amelia and littered her desk.

Gingerly, she unfolded and read them one by one, feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic. Most of them fell very much within Sirius' standard ouvre – a few poorly drafted letters which merited discarding, a couple of rather rude sketches, a shopping list – but one item did catch her eye.

"Potential names?" She muttered, assessing the list which Sirius had made and thrown away. "For what, exactly?"

The list was certainly enlightening:

 _The Lockwood Academy for Muggleborn Development_

 _The Black Foundation for Magical Improvement_

 _Ars Mundus et Magicus?_ (This was crossed out, and he'd written TOO PRETENTIOUS next to it)

 _Academy of the Magical Arts_

 _The Lockwood Preparatory School for Gifted Students_

And so it went on.

"Oh, Sirius, you damned idiot," Amelia breathed, hardly daring to believe what she was reading, "what the hell have you done?"

* * *

To their great pleasure, Graham and Remus' renovating work soon paid off, and their slightly mystified solicitor found herself transferring a sum of several hundred thousand pounds into their account just two weeks after it had gone on the market.

"I don't understand, entirely," she said, "but I will say this: you must be a damned miracle worker to have turned that wreck you bought around so quickly."

Graham laughed, modestly, and launched into the explanation that he'd come up with, some tosh about his pioneering plan to revolutionise the renovation business, comfortable that his solicitor was more interested in the commission she'd be receiving than whatever convoluted explanation he was putting forth.

"Why don't we talk about the other two places I asked you to look at?" he said, once her feigned interest had faded somewhat. "Have the surveyors got back to you?"

"Oh, yes." She replied, reaching over to rummage through the papers splayed across her desk. "They're not very optimistic, though – it's a rather similar forecast to your last acquisition, Mr. Longshaw."

"Not a problem." Graham said, confidently. "I think that defying surveyors may just become a speciality of mine! I think we can go ahead and transfer the asking price into your retention accpunt, if you're comfortable with that."

Unsurprisingly, perhaps because she shared the dream of all lawyers, which is to have so much money in your pockets that you need special braces to hold your trousers up, his lawyer readily agreed, and Graham was soon able to make his excuses and head back to Lockwood.

Spring had indubitably sprung, and, as he proceeded up the country lane which led to the warded path to Lockwood, Graham couldn't help but smile at the birdsong drifting from the hedges. He'd never considered himself the bucolic type, but the time he'd spent around Lockwood had given him a new appreciation for the outdoors.

He made his way through the warded gate which was Lockwood's public-facing entrance, and, at length, proceeded to the house proper, smiling as he saw Remus and Delia carrying out some kind of spellwork around the greenhouses. Graham had never come round to fixing them, more than a little worried that – being the inexperienced herbologist he was – he'd be caught out by some deadly plant or other, but Remus had pronounced them safe and was using them to teach Delia the spells they were using to carry out renovations.

"You're definitely there." he said, satisfied, "Just remember to pronounce _vitriam_ properly, and I'm sure that you won't have any problems – oh, hello, Graham!"

"Hello!" Delia echoed, lowering her wand. "How did your meeting go?"

"Does this answer your question?" Graham said, striding up to the pair of them. "Here – Remus, for work done, and Delia, as an advance on your salary."

He handed each of them a cheque, grinning, and watched for a moment, until Delia gasped, entirely shocked.

"Twenty- Graham, this is far too much. You're being ridiculous."

"I assure you, Delia, that I'm not." he said, grinning all the more broadly. "We've a sizeable residue left over, and I think that it's a very good idea indeed to make sure that we can all live perfectly comfortably."

"Delia, how much is this?" Remus asked, quietly. "In Galleons, I mean."

"Uh – it's one per five pounds, roughly, I think." She said, still transfixed by the piece of paper she held. "Which means, um, four thousand galleons, give or take."

There was a moment of suspended silence, and then Remus let off a slightly hysterical bark of laughter.

"You do know that this is more money than I've ever held in my life?" He asked, absently. "It's – you could buy anything for this much money in the magical world, Graham, more or less. This is absolutely insane."

"This is supply and demand when you have a very unique supply indeed, mate." Graham said. "We're doing this for a reason, which is good. But if we were a little bit less scrupulous, we'd be able to live like kings."

"Anyway," he continued, as his companions still seemed a little starstruck and disinclined to speak, "who's up for drinks? I figure that we could use a little celebration, and you'd be surprised at how expansive my drinks cabinet is."

And so, at length, the three of them retired to the deckchairs Graham had bought the summer before, and before long, they were enjoying a slightly early glass of Pimms as the sun began to set.

It was a perfect day, Graham thought, contentedly. He'd always loved to see a plan come together, especially one as audacious as the revolution he was, very carefully, fermenting -

With a sputtering pop, Sirius apparated onto the grounds of Lockwood, looking more than a little queasy. He was not, unfortunately, alone.

"Graham," Sirius said, wincing at the wand which Amelia Bones was pressing into the small of his back, "I think that we need to have a rather uncomfortable conversation..."

* * *

AN: Thank you, again, for reading! A slightly shorter chapter, this. I'm occupied by exams (again – my travails will never cease...) and I've decided that I'd rather write chapters of slightly lesser length than to not write at all. Sirius, you may have noticed, is a bit of a plonker – but I think we all know that about him already.

As always, reviews are appreciated, solicited, and above all enjoyed. I was delighted to receive my hundredth with the last chapter – so thank you to all of you who gave your time up to write me one!


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